Man cleared of Coronavirus shouts ‘we’re free!’ after leaving Arrowe Park Hospital 14-day quarantine

By Tony Winterburn • Published: 13 Feb 2020 • 17:36

"Were Free"- Matt Raw, one of the first to leave isolation at Arrowe Park Hospital in the Wirral today.

More than 80 people evacuated to the UK from the Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak have celebrated the end of two weeks in quarantine.

“We’re free,” shouted one man, Matt Raw, as he left isolation at Arrowe Park Hospital in the Wirral, Merseyside, today. Mr.Raw was among the first group of people to be flown out of Wuhan by the Foreign Office.

As he walked out of the gates surrounding the apartment block where he had been staying in isolation for the past week, he raised his fist and said: ”We’re free! … And the sun’s shining.”

Mr. Raw praised the “wonderful, wonderful” NHS staff who he said had made him and his mother Hazel, 75, and his wife Ying, 38, feel as though they were “just on holiday for a couple of weeks”.

“They have really done their very best to make us as comfortable as possible,” he said. “We’re not prisoners. They’re trying to make us feel like, if anything, we’re just on holiday for a couple of weeks, maybe without the swimming pool.”

Mr Raw said he now planned to return to his home in Knutsford, Cheshire, put the heating on and feed the goldfish. He added: ”It is absolutely lovely to be out and I’ll no doubt be going out for a pint a little bit later.”

The latest news on the Coronavirus:

More than 15,000 new cases of COVID19 were confirmed overnight, bringing the total to over 60,000.