This is bbc news. Im shaun ley. The headlines at three 17 people are reported to have been shot dead and several others wounded in a mass shooting in north east thailand the situation is ongoing and the suspect a soldier, is still at large. Five british people including a child have tested positive for the coronavirus at a ski resort in france. Six senior conservatives write to tory mps to raise concerns about the governments decision to allow huawei to help build the uks 56 network. Why would you want to build into your system an organisation that remains a threat . I dont know of anywhere else in the world that would do that. Officials working on Boris Johnsons pledge to recruit an extra 20,000 Police Officers say that theyll actually need to take on more than 50,000
as many are set to leave. The met Office IssuesSevere Weather warnings for the weekend as storm ciara approaches from the atlantic. Preparations are underway for the england scotland in the six nations this afternoon. Wales are currently playing ireland. Good afternoon. Reports from thailand say an armed soldier has killed 17 people, north east of the capital bangkok. More than a dozen others have been injured. The gunman is said to be holed up in a Shopping Mall in the city of korat. The Thai Defence Ministry said the attacker shot his boss and a relative and stole weapons
from a military camp. He opened fire at a buddhist temple and later at the Shopping Centre, where Police Continue to hunt him. The Thai Ministry of defence says the attacker is a low ranking officer named jakraphanth thomma. These pictures were taken from his Facebook Page, on which he posted updates on the rampage as it happened. It has since been taken down. The bbcs Thanyarat Doksone is following the ongoing incident and gave some further information about the soldiers background. He is still in the army. According to the Defence Ministry spokesman, he said that this man, this gunman isa he said that this man, this gunman is a low ranking, veryjunior officer who is based in the city of korat and about six hours ago, he
started killing his commander and also a relative who lives in the same house before he went on a military base and stole some guns and ammunition before he continued his rampage at a buddhist temple and ata his rampage at a buddhist temple and at a very busy Shopping Mall. This isa at a very busy Shopping Mall. This is a saturday evening, at a very popular Shopping Mall in the city and there were a lot of people there and there were a lot of people there and there were a lot of people there and the attack sent everybody panicking. What have they said about their efforts to detain this man . The authorities have been sent in, both the police and military have been sent into the mall to try and control the situation. As far as we know, the gunman has not been caught and according to the defence
ministry spokesman, he has been hiding in the basement of the Shopping Mall. In terms of the number of people injured and the fatalities, apart from the relative and somebody he knew, do we think most of the others were random attacks . It looks like it was a random attack because as he posted on his Facebook Page, he said that, reportedly he said that three people we re reportedly he said that three people were for his personal revenge and he claimed that was for self protection. So it looks like these people he met on the street and started shooting at were just random people. As far as we know he is still in the Shopping Mall, they are trying to make direct contact with him and presumably hoping they can persuade him to give himself up. Thats right, yes. At this point his Facebook Page has been taken down so im not sure how they can make
contact with him at this point, but the authorities have said their top priority is the safety of people in the area. They have sealed off the Shopping Mall although there are people locked inside who have been sending tweets and updates about their locations. The latest from bangkok. We now have an increase in the number of people thought to have been shot by the gunman. It is now 20 and we will continue to monitor that situation, bring you more on it as soon as we get it. Five british people including a child have been diagnosed with the new coronavirus while on holiday in the french alps. They were all staying in the same chalet in a ski resort in the savoir region. Elsewhere, a british family are in hospital in majorca as a precaution, after they reportedly came in to contact with a coronavirus patient. More than 700 people have died from the virus in china since the outbreak started. Andy moore reports. A picturesque ski resort in the french alps the unlikely
setting for this new cluster of coronavirus cases. French officials said a british man came to a chalet in Contamines Montjoie after visiting singapore. He then infected at least five other people, including a child. A total of 11 people are in hospital, but theyre not said to be in a serious condition. Translation there are five new cases in a group, all catching it from one infected person. In a separate case in mallorca, a british family of four, including two girls, is in hospital as a precaution after one of them came in contact with a coronavirus case in france. Translation this morning, we took samples. We have to prepare and protect them under secure biological conditions in the lab, to be sent to the centre in madrid. On a cruise liner quarantined off the coast of japan, 64 people have now tested positive for coronavirus. They have been taken off the ship to hospital. One of them is british. Alan steele from walsall was celebrating his honeymoon. Hes said to be doing well, according to his friends, who are still on board the cruise liner. He was taken off the ship yesterday, late afternoon. Hes in a hospital near tokyo. Wendy is missing him a great deal, obviously, but theyre in regular touch, and alan has been in touch with me a couple of times today. Tomorrow, the last of 150 british citizens are expected to arrive back in the uk on the final Repatriation Flights from wuhan. They will be taken to a training and Conference Venue on the outskirts of milton keynes. Andy moore, bbc news. Our correspondent Hugh Schofield gave me this update from paris. At the press conference in annecy, the departmental capital of the alps, they have given us some detail. Its now quite apparent that the source of this infection is the british man who we know has
already been identified, he self identified. Hes from brighton and he is now in hospital in london. He had been at a conference in singapore which we know, the hotel has been the source of several cases in asia as well. He had come back to europe ten days or so ago and stayed first in a chalet in the alps and then gone on to brighton where he developed the symptoms. He had gone to the authorities, quite rightly, and they obviously asked, where have you been . And the information has emerged that he went to the alps, so the british authorities passed that information to the french authorities who went to the chalet and last night confirmed that of the 11 people who are living in this chalet, five have been contaminated with the virus. At this press conference they had more detail. They said the chalet consists of two apartments. In one of the apartments
is a family of british people who are resident in france, who have set up in france, and that is a family a mum, dad and three young children. The mother wasnt in france at the time but its the father and a nine year old boy in this family who have the virus. In the other apartment were seven tourists, holiday makers, not clear if theyre friends of the family or not. Of that group, three have the virus. All 11, the family and seven tourists, are under observation in hospital, being kept in isolation, but there is no real cause of worry about them. In fact, there doesnt seem to be any symptoms at all displayed by any of them, even those with the actual virus, but of course they tested positive to the virus and the others were in close contact with them, so they are being kept in strict isolation from others. Meanwhile, the investigations continue in the town to find other possible cases. The boy, and this is important, attended the local school. The nine year old boy, who has the virus, attends the local school and he was there on friday. So there is a certain amount of attention being paid obviously on his classmates. There were some reports that the schools, two local schools, will not open on monday as normal because of concerns about that. Exactly. Thats what they said. The school in contamines and then another school at a nearby town, both small. We are talking about mountain communities. Not huge populations. Both these schools will be shut. The boy, because hes british, or english, and has taken up residence there with his family, his french is not great, so he is having remedial french lessons to get his french up to speed at this other school, so both schools are concerned. We have further confirmation of an update on one of the other countries
affected, singapore. It has now confirmed it has seven more cases of the virus, taking the tally to a0. Thailand, sorry, singapore has the facilities to test and the more people tested, the more likely that cases will emerge. Logic that cases have appeared in that part of asia. Lets move on. I spoke to chris smith, whos a consultant virologist at Cambridge University and a presenter on the naked scientist podcast a little earlier. He explained how the virus had evolved. I noticed way back at the beginning of january that it appeared that lightning may be striking twice with wuhan because of its very close correspondence with what had happened with sars back in 20022003. So we took this very seriously. The story is beginning to clarify a little bit in terms of the origin. We have now seen information pointing towards it possibly
being a a trade in pangolins in the markets, as an intermediate host, so we think this virus has come from bats, that bats traded viruses with the pangolins in the market and the pangolinss may have then carried the virus into humans. We have also this week seen the story that obviously britain has has its third case in mainland britain and that that person caught the virus outside china, and that spoke quite a lot to us because what that is saying is that previously where our Case Definition, what we are using to decide whether to tell someone for this, depended on have they been in china. Now we have had to widen the Case Definition to nine territories, including singapore where this one person visited, and that tells us the virus is notjust outside china but it is spreading person to person outside china and now we are seeing this evidence of onward spread from the ski resort in france. This is sort of what we anticipated but now we are beginning to look and test, it is beginning to confirm what we suspected was probably going to be the trajectory of this thing. As it stands we have official figures from china saying the death toll on the mainland is 722. It looks like given the pace of fatalities that very soon it would exceed the number of people who died because of sars. In a sense it is just one random figure followed by another random figure, but in terms of building up capacity to deal with this and treat this as perhaps a longer term problem that might be with us for a few months, our people already looking to that . We looked to sars to try to understand and predict the trajectory of this thing and as you say, it has already surpassed that, but the data we have is from china and china was notoriously closed about what they did and didnt share in terms of what really happened with sars, so we dont really know what the inside china story was there. We know that a thousand people got sars, there was about a 10 mortality rate. 8000 8000 people got sars. This time there are documented more than 30,000 people with this virus at the moment, the death rate is north of 700 people, so the mortality rate sitting at around a couple of percent, sars was closer to ten, but what we are seeing with this virus is unlike sars which was relatively hard to transmit, this virus appears relatively easy to transmit. While it is not necessarily as lethal as sars, in other words the mortality rate is lower, because it is capable of spreading more vigorously, the overall number of people who could succumb could be higher. This is speculation at the moment. We will have a clearer picture in the next week or so because countries like this one will wheel out test at local level, so we will be able to test more rapidly and more people in Laboratory Networks across the country. This will give us a clearer picture, what the invisible hitherto burden of disease is. What we have seen at the
tip of the iceberg is stuff we could test for, stuff we could document. I suspect this is all over the world and there are a large number of cases hidden below the water line because we are not looking. If you turned up with these symptoms to a hospital at the moment, and you didnt fit the Case Definition, i havent been to a certain geography or had contact with someone who has, you wouldnt necessarily be tested for this at the moment. So if you did have it, you wouldnt be documented as a case. You mention out running out testing facilities. I was talking to the who in africa and they were saying it was surprising that there hadnt been any reported cases yet given the number of chinese travellers backwards and forwards from the continent. At that point they had only two countries to test for it. By only two countries to test for it. By the end of this week there were hoping to have 30 countries hoping to test for it and presumably that pattern is to in other parts of the
developing world. If you look at the map you might conclude that africa is one of the safest places to be at the moment because they have no cases. Actually, these are resource poor settings and many of the population dont live within reach ofa population dont live within reach of a hospital where you could test. In the very early era of hiv, the reason it spread so far and for so long without being detected was no one new to look for it, no one could look for it and if you go back to old samples from the 1950s and before, you could find hiv was there. It is the same with this. We have spread but until we can go looking for it we will not know it is there and it is critical to focus on the third world because we can direct these clever barriers and ways of testing and mitigation strategies here in this country, but it will continuously cede into this country from places like africa if we dont help them to control their
disease as well. It is important we have a Global Solution to what is a mounting global problem. An update about the case of coronavirus in brighton. Following m essa 9 es coronavirus in brighton. Following messages have been sent to parents and carers who have pupils in portslade academy. We will continue to pass on the advice giving schools in the city as soon as we receive updates. As i am sure many of you are aware, Media Outlets reported on thursday the first confirmed case of the coronavirus in brighton. We are working in collaboration with and guided by the local authority and Public Health england to ensure we are acting consistently with the right medical advice. Today we have been contacted by the parent of a student who was contacted by Public Health england as part of their
investigation concerning the confirmed case which is been reported in the newspapers yesterday. We have been informed that they have been advised by Public Health england to self isolate their child at home for ia days. If at any point the child is found to be symptomatic, we will be notified. The local authority has confirmed that Public Health england and the office of the chief medical officer are clear in their advice that schools do not need to close. Public Health England is leading on control measures and will be contacting people who may be effected using their established systems for similar situations. We will continue to keep parents updated with any advice passed on to us and the statement has attached to it more direct advice from the local authority and Public Health england, aimed at parents and those operating schools and working on the of pa rents. Schools and working on the of parents. That is the latest situation as it affects brighton. More on that as soon as we get it. The headlines on bbc news 20 people are reported to have been shot dead and several others wounded in a mass shooting in north east thailand the situation is ongoing and the suspect a soldier, is still at large. 5 british people including a child have tested positive for the coronavirus at a ski resort in france six senior conservatives write to tory mps to raise concerns about the governments decision to allow huawei to help build the uks 56 network. In sport ireland have the urge against wales, daily 12 7. And still to come in the six nations, scotland versus england in murrayfield in rugbys oldest rivalry. And everton extend their unbeaten run to five games scoring against Crystal Palace and goodison park. More in the next hour. A group of senior conservatives is urging fellow tory mps to challenge borisjohnsons decision to give the Chinese Technology firm a role in building the uks 56 mobile networks. In a letter, severalformer cabinet ministers say there are alternative options which would not compromise national security. The government insists