Coronavirus: Workers told to self-isolate will get sick pay from day one

It comes as England's Chief Medical Officer warned that a UK epidemic is now ‘likely’.

Boris Johnson said people who self-isolate are ‘helping to protect all of us by slowing the spread of the virus’ and did not deserve to be penalised financially.

At least 53 people have now been diagnosed with the deadly disease – including the first patient in Hampshire.

He told the Commons that sick pay changes would be brought in as part of emergency coronavirus legislation.

‘If they stay at home and if we ask people to self-isolate, they may lose out financially,’ he told MPs.

‘So, I can today announce that the Health Secretary will bring forward, as part of our emergency coronavirus legislation, measures to allow the payment of statutory sick pay from the very first day you are sick instead of four days under the current rules, and I think that's the right way forward.

‘Nobody should be penalised for doing the right thing.’

But TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said the move did not go far enough.

She said: ‘Two million workers still don't earn enough to qualify for statutory sick pay. They can't afford not to work. And statutory sick pay still isn't enough to live on.’

Earlier, England's Chief medical Officer said community transmission of Covid-19 is undoubtedly already occurring throughout the UK.

Professor Chris Whitty told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: ‘At this point in time we think it is likely, not definite, that we will move into onward transmission and an epidemic here in the UK.’

He told BBC Breakfast there could be a need to do ‘extreme things t’o protect the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions.

But for most people, ‘this will be a mild or moderate disease, anything from a sniffle to having to go to bed for a few days, rather like with mild flu,’ he said.