The English press nicknamed him “Super-spreader”. A British businessman who contracted the new coronavirus said on Tuesday that he was "completely recovered", after having transmitted it to a dozen other people, notably in the French Alps.
“I want to thank the NHS [NDLR; the English national health service] for their help and care. I am fully recovered and my thoughts are with those who have contracted the coronavirus, ”said Steve Walsh in a written statement from the London hospital where he is still in quarantine.
Originally from Hove in the south of England, Steve Walsh was infected with the new coronavirus during a conference in Singapore sponsored by Servomex, the British gas analysis company he works for.
Placed in an isolation unit of an English hospital
On the way back to the United Kingdom, he stopped for several days in a chalet in a ski resort in Haute-Savoie - Les Contamines-Montjoie - where several other British people were then contaminated, including a child from 9 years. Since then, five of these people have been hospitalized in France and one on the Spanish island of Majorca.
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The businessman then returned to the United Kingdom, where he is linked to at least five other cases of coronavirus, including two involving doctors.
Steve Walsh explained that he contacted the health services as soon as he understood that he had been exposed to a confirmed case of coronavirus. "I was advised to go to an isolated room in the hospital, despite the absence of symptoms, then to stay isolated at home."
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"When the diagnosis was confirmed, I was sent to an isolation unit at the hospital, where I am still, and, as a precaution, my family was also asked to stay in solitary confinement," a- he explained.
To return from his skiing holiday, the man in his fifties took a Geneva-London flight aboard which was a hundred people. Back home, he went to a nearby pub before being diagnosed, according to The Daily Mail.
"We are delighted that Steve Walsh has fully recovered," said his employer Servomex in a statement, adding that he was working "with public health authorities to ensure the well-being of (his) staff."
Haute-Savoie negative tests
The epidemic in France remains maintained for the time being. No new case of coronavirus has been detected in France, said Monday the Director General of Health, Professor Salomon.
The five people carrying the virus in Contamines-Montjoie "are hospitalized and in a completely reassuring clinical situation, there is no concern today about their state of health", he continued.
In Haute-Savoie, so far "61 people have been tested, and 61 people have had a negative test", he said, stressing that at this date, "there is no chain of transmission ", which is" reassuring for the population concerned "in this department.
For its part, the WHO which officially renamed the coronavirus, "Covid-19", said Tuesday that there was a "realistic chance of stopping" the spread of the virus worldwide.