TWO of UK’s eight coronavirus cases are ‘healthcare workers’ who were holidaying with ‘super-spreader’ businessman at French ski resort – as GP surgery closes and staff hunt for infected patients

• Four patients diagnosed in Brighton over the weekend and were all known contacts of UK’s super spreader 
• County Oak Medical Centre in Brighton is closed today for ‘urgent operational health and safety reasons’
• Super spreader is Brit in his fifties from Hove who became infected in Singapore then flew to France 
• Dr Catriona Saynor, a friend of the ‘super spreader’, was a GP until last June but works there as a locum 
• Bob Saynor, 48, and his son, nine, are in hospital while hundreds in Les Contamines-Montjoie being tested 
• Do you know any of the patients? Email stephen.matthews@mailonline.co.uk or call 0203 615 0203

Patients at a Brighton doctors’ surgery where at least one member of staff has tested positive for coronavirus are being urgently traced today as four people in the city were confirmed to have the killer illness from China.

County Oak Medical Centre has been shut down, sealed off and is being cleaned by a team in hazmat suits this afternoon ‘because of an urgent operational health and safety reason’.

A British ‘super spreader’ is feared to have infected at least 11 people with coronavirus he picked up in Singapore, prompting the emergency testing of hundreds of people on his flights, Alpine ski break and even staff in his local pub and yoga class in Hove.

A member of County Oak staff has tested positive for coronavirus today and a second healthcare worker has also been infected – they are suspected to both be doctors at the Brighton surgery but this is unconfirmed.

The NHS has refused to reveal the patients’ jobs, how many people they came into contact with at work or whether they were on a skiing holiday with the ‘super spreader’ in late January.

Dr Catriona Saynor, who owns the chalet in the Alps where the British ‘super-spreader’ stayed two weeks ago, was a partner at the surgery until last summer but works there as a locum, according to the medical centre’s website. She is believed to be infected with the coronavirus and having treatment at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

Her environmental consultant husband Bob and their nine-year-old son are in quarantine in a French hospital after being exposed the virus by their guest from Hove – but it is not yet confirmed if Dr Saynor is in Britain or in France.

It is feared the County Oak staff member came into contact with a British ‘super spreader’, who is believed to have infected at least 11 others on a French ski holiday, and then worked an ‘admin day’, during which she did not see any patients, at the surgery.

County Oak medical centre in Brighton has been shut down, sealed off and is being cleaned by a team in hazmat suits this afternoon ‘because of an urgent operational health and safety reason’.

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