Coronavirus: Family pays tribute to 45-year-old father after he becomes youngest UK victim

‘Craig was not ready to go,’ wife says

Patrick Vallance says as many as 55,000 could be infected with coronavirus (Me and my MND / Facebook)

A “wonderfully kind and caring” 45-year-old father has become the youngest person diagnosed with coronavirus to die in the UK.

Craig Ruston, from Kettering - who was also fighting motor neurone disease (MND) - died on Monday, according to his wife.

“Craig was not ready to go,” she wrote on Facebook. “Still doing everything in his power to raise awareness and fight the fight for MND.”

His wife Sally said he fell ill on Tuesday last week, and that his "chest infection was confirmed as Covid-19".

“How dare that take Craig who was already facing this, the most vile and evil of diseases,” she wrote on a Facebook page where Mr Ruston documented his fight against MND, which he was diagnosed with nearly two years ago.

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She called her husband “a wonderfully kind and caring person” who “loved the world”.

"He was one of the most intelligent people I know that would absorb information and could somehow explain just about anything," she said. "Science was his thing, amongst others."

She said: “Craig’s wish upon death was to give his brain to the Oxford Brain Bank. It was to be used specifically for MND research and Craig was so keen to do this.

“Sadly this can no longer happen. How dare this virus take this from Craig.”

As of Wednesday, there were 1,950 confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK.

Seventy-one people who tested positive for the disease have died in the country, many with underlying health conditions.

The pandemic has put countries – including Italy and Spain – into a state of lockdown, with the British prime minister urging people to avoid the office, social venues and all non-essential travel.

Boris Johnson also told people with "the most serious health conditions" to avoid all social contact for 12 weeks, starting from this weekend.

Covid-19 – a flu-like disease that can develop into pneumonia – has infected more than 198,000 people around the world since cases were first reported in Wuhan, China, towards the end of last year.