No need to change Canada’s plans after WHO declares global emergency: Hajdu

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Canada is already taking the right steps to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, so there is no need to change things now that the World Health Organization has declared a global emergency over the outbreak, federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu said Thursday.

“The World Health Organization’s global emergency status is really … about helping countries that do not have the same level of sophistication as Canada, or perhaps the United States, to protect their citizens if in fact they have a citizen who returns from China who is ill, or has been close to someone who has returned from China who is ill,” Hajdu told reporters in Ottawa.

“You know this has been working very well in Canada, because we have actually been able to detect cases very quickly, support those people to get better and prevent the spread of disease,” she said. “And what the World Health Organization is saying is that we’ve got to make sure that other countries can do that as well, because it is in the interest of world health that we support everyone in this process.”

The World Health Organization declared the outbreak, which was sparked by a new virus in China that has been exported to more than a dozen countries, as a global emergency Thursday. The UN health agency defines an international emergency as an “extraordinary event” that constitutes a risk to other countries and requires a co-ordinated response.

Though many people experience only mild symptoms from the virus, China has reported more than 7,800 cases, including 170 deaths.

Hajdu stressed the need — and the responsibility — to remain calm.

“I think that anything that we are doing as politicians or leaders or members of the media that will create a sense of anxiety or panic is actually a dangerous road to travel down,” she said.

Earlier Thursday, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health said the relatively low number of cases here is “reassuring,” even though it is still early days in dealing with the virus.

There are three confirmed cases of the virus in Canada — two in Ontario and one in British Columbia — and all are linked to recent travel in China.

Dr. David Williams and Ontario’s associate chief medical officer of health, Dr. Barbara Yaffe, held a briefing on the new virus Thursday and said there are no new presumptive or confirmed cases in Ontario. Williams said he would be much more concerned at this point if the province had already seen around seven to 10 cases.

“This is reassuring in a way, but not that we’re going to sit back and coast,” he said. “The system is working. We’re investigating. Individuals of concern have self-reported, are coming forward and we haven’t seen ones that out of the blue show up already quite ill and infected. We’re not seeing that yet, but it’s still early days.”

There are 27 cases currently under investigation in the province, and 38 people have already been tested and cleared.

Williams said the coronavirus does not seem to be much different from regular influenza in terms of transmissibility, and evidence suggests it is not transmissible when a person is not feeling symptoms.

The two Ontario cases are a husband and wife, and since they had both travelled to the affected area in China, it’s unclear whether the woman — as the second case — got it in Wuhan or from her husband.

Asked about the novel virus Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned against stigmatizing the Chinese-Canadian community.

“We’ve seen too many instances of unreasonable fears being spread either on the internet or in other ways. We need to know this is a time for Canadians — all Canadians, including Canadians of Chinese origin — to pull together and to lean on each other,” Trudeau told reporters in Brampton, Ont.

Meanwhile, Quebec has no confirmed cases of the new virus, and the chances of its being transmitted to the community are considered low, the province’s director of public health said Thursday.

Dr. Horacio Arruda warned the public against wearing masks, which he said “do not constitute, by science, a useful tool for the general population in Quebec, even in the context of a coronavirus outbreak.” Instead, he suggested people practice “respiratory hygiene” by washing their hands and covering their mouths when sneezing or coughing.

If people have respiratory symptoms and have to go out in public, wearing a mask can help prevent transmission, Yaffe said, but it is not useful for the general population.

“Anybody who’s feeling well, wearing a mask is not going to do anything,” she said. “In fact, it might give them a false sense of security.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 30, 2020.

—With files from The Associated Press.