The UK Foreign Office is anticipating the Chinese government enforcing further travel bans on the country and is consequently advising British citizens to get out the country before it is too late.

While the Chinese government has come under fire for its initially slow response to the outbreak of Coronavirus in the city of Wuhan, it appears to be attempting to make up for lost time now, with sweeping authoritarian measures that have seen tens of millions of residents in several cities placed on near or total lockdown.

While ordinary citizens have had their ability to travel by road, train, and air removed, the small number of foreign citizens living and working in these areas are being repatriated by their home governments, with chartered flights from several nations around the world flying in and out of locked-down areas. Many nations are putting these citizens directly into quarantine upon their return, and up to 300 British citizens are expected to be flown home and moved into a military base for two weeks of observation and treatment today.

But the time available to get out of China is limited, the government believes, and the new advice from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in London to Britons abroad is to get out of China while they still can.

While up to this point the FCO has advised against all but essential travel to China, that advice seems to have evolved, with a spokesman quoted by British newspaper The Times saying: “It may become harder over the coming weeks for those who wish to leave China to do so. If you feel that you may want to leave China soon, you should consider making plans to do so before any further restrictions may be imposed.”

While flights by flag carrier airline British Airways to and from China have now been suspended, the repatriation flight today has been chartered by and paid for by the British government, meaning there is no cost to stranded Britons stuck in China taking it. Despite the flight having been organised by the British government it was prevented from taking off on Thursday, the BBC reporting the aircraft had not been given permission to fly by the Chinese government.

The official Chinese government death toll of the Wuhan Coronavirus reached 170 overnight, with 7,711 confirmed cases in every region of the country. While cases have been confirmed in other countries worldwide, including in France and Germany but not in the United Kingdom, all deaths so far have been in China.