The UK has seen its biggest day-on-day increase in coronavirus cases, bringing the total number to 85.
Some 29 of the 34 new patients had recently travelled to affected countries or picked it up from others who had done so, the UK's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty said.
But it is not clear how three new patients in England were infected.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock will chair a Cobra meeting at 17:00 GMT, Downing Street said.
Prof Whitty - who earlier said an epidemic in the UK was "likely" - said people who have been in contact with the new patients are being traced.
Of the 85 cases in the UK, there are 80 in England, three in Scotland, one in Wales and one in Northern Ireland.
What do I need to know about the coronavirus?
- HOW IS THE UK PLANNING FOR AN OUTBREAK: How prepared are we?
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- A VISUAL GUIDE TO THE OUTBREAK: Virus maps and charts
In "the worst case scenario", up to 80% of the UK population could be infected with coronavirus, which causes the disease Covid-19, Prof Whitty said.
But he said a move to lock down entire towns and cities across the UK would be "very unlikely".
In other key developments:
- Hospitals in England have been asked to carry out more consultations by video to reduce the risk of the virus spreading
- Italy is considering closing schools and universities across the country until mid-March - a decision will be taken "in the next few hours", its education minister says. Italy is the worst-hit European country with some 2,260 cases and 79 deaths so far - including more than 20 in the past 24 hours
- Guests who left a quarantined hospital in Tenerife have been told to self-isolate for a further week after a British woman at the hotel tested positive on 2 March
- CCTV images have been released of four men wanted over an alleged racist attack on London's Oxford Street, reportedly motivated by virus fears
- There are fears of global shortages of some common drugs after India limited the export of certain medicines
- Grants and low-cost loans are part of a $12bn (£9.4bn) emergency aid package to help developing countries
- And Australians have been stockpiling toilet paper after the country's first death was reported
A major public health campaign urging people to wash their hands regularly for at least 20 seconds has also been launched.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said washing hands regularly was the "single most important thing that an individual can do".
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Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced emergency legislation allowing workers to get statutory sick pay from the first day they are off work, not the fourth, to help contain the virus.
Mr Johnson told the House of Commons that people who self-isolate should not be "penalised for doing the right thing".
What have we learnt from these new cases?
It's the biggest daily rise we have had. But this is not unexpected - health officials have been warning we should be braced for an increase.
This could last for two or three months until a peak is reached.
Of the 34 new cases, three are worrying from the perspective that the government has been unable to establish how they were infected. They have no links to people who have been abroad to places where there are significant outbreaks.
That brings the total number of cases like this to five - and could be a sign that the virus is circulating in the community.
Some of the other new cases are not people who had been abroad, but were infected in this country by people who had been.
That in itself is a sign there are clusters developing that the health authorities will be working hard to contain.
No details are being released about where the new cases are or just how big these clusters are, leaving some key questions hanging.
The sick pay announcement means those receiving statutory sick pay would get an extra £40 a week, paid for by their employers.
The government has said up to a fifth of the workforce may be off sick during the peak of a coronavirus epidemic in the UK.
About 90,000 people have been infected globally since the outbreak of coronavirus in Hubei province, China, in December, with cases in more than 50 countries and more than 3,000 deaths.
Last week, a British man who was infected on the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan became the first UK citizen to die from the virus.
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2020-03-04 15:37:44Z
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