Mark Strong to front a coronavirus awareness advertising campaign
The government will unveil its biggest public service advertising blitz since the Aids pandemic next week to promote awareness of coronavirus symptoms.
Actor Mark Strong – whose credits include Sherlock Holmes, RocknRolla, Kingsman and The Imitation Game – and the UK’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty will be the faces of the campaign.
The advertisements will stress that people should stay home if they have a cough or a high temperature.
The advertisements are expected to appear on television, online, in print and on radio stations.
The cost of the campaign is expected to span into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
It comes as the UK death toll from Covid-19 hit 34 today and the number of confirmed cases rose to 1,732 – a 20 per cent increase since yesterday.
The government will up its measures to combat the pandemic next week as it prepares to tell over-70s, who are most susceptible to Covid-19, to quarantine for up to four months.
Large public gatherings are also set to be banned.
Boris Johnson has also reached out to manufacturers, included Rolls Royce and JCB, to help produce ventilators to help combat the virus.
Health secretary Matt Hancock said the health service has an estimated 5,000 ventilators, but that the country would need “many times more than that”.
He said the NHS would need as many as they could get their hands on and that the government would pay for all of the new ventilators manufactured.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Hancock compared the coronavirus outbreak to World War II.
He said: “Our generation has never been tested like this. Our grandparents were, during the Second World War, when our cities were bombed during the Blitz. Despite the pounding every night, the rationing, the loss of life, they pulled together in one gigantic national effort.
“Today our generation is facing its own test, fighting a very real and new disease. We must fight the disease to protect life. Everyone will be asked to make sacrifices, to protect themselves and others, especially those most vulnerable to this disease.”