{"id":243738,"date":"2020-02-01T06:42:35","date_gmt":"2020-02-01T11:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=243738"},"modified":"2020-02-01T06:42:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-01T11:42:35","slug":"canada-has-fourth-case-of-new-coronavirus-but-officials-say-it-is-a-mild-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/02\/01\/canada-has-fourth-case-of-new-coronavirus-but-officials-say-it-is-a-mild-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada has fourth case of new coronavirus, but officials say it is a mild one"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: Photo taken on Jan. 22, 2020 shows a thermal detector at Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province. (Xinhua\/Xiao Yijiu via PNA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO \u2014 Canada now has four confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, though health officials say the latest Ontario case is a mild one and there’s no evidence of heightened risk to the public.<\/p>\n

A woman in her 20s who is a university student in London, Ont., returned to Canada from the affected area in China on Jan. 23, Ontario health officials said Friday, but she didn’t show any symptoms until the next day.<\/p>\n

\u201cProtocols and procedures were followed excellently, in such a way that there’s been no risk at all to Ontarians or to the health system in this process,\u201d said Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health.<\/p>\n

Initial testing in Ontario actually showed the woman was negative for the virus, but tests at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg came back as \u201cweakly positive,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sense is that the viral load was very low as well,\u201d he said, referring to the amount of virus in a person’s body. \u201cNevertheless, to be thorough and precautionary, this one should be switched to a positive case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Vanessa Allen, the chief of medical microbiology for the Public Health Ontario Laboratory, explained that tests are evolving, and the Ontario lab applied two tests to the sample versus five at the national lab. All of Ontario’s other negative cases have been retested using a more sensitive test and remain negative, she said. The national lab has nearly finished retesting those samples as well, and hasn’t found any other positives, Allen said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate chief medical officer of health, said a person is considered free of the virus once two tests at least 24 hours apart are negative.<\/p>\n

Health Minister Christine Elliott said Ontario’s public health system has shown \u201cremarkable\u201d responsiveness to the new virus.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we learn more about the 2019 novel coronavirus, related tools and procedures are getting more precise and more effective,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cEvery Ontarian should have full confidence that these efforts by our dedicated public health professionals are keeping them safe. Because of their hard work, the risk to Ontarians remains low.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman in the new case had no symptoms when she returned to Canada, but has been in self-isolation ever since and only left her home to go to hospital, where staff wore protective gear, said Dr. Chris Mackie, the medical officer of health for the Middlesex-London Health Unit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe patient is in home isolation,\u201d he said. \u201cShe’s perfectly well now. She’s been well for several days.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman is a student at Western University, but has not been on campus since returning to London, the school said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Both of her parents were sick in a Wuhan hospital, Mackie said, but their illnesses were mild so they weren’t tested for the novel coronavirus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s one of the reasons she was particularly alert to the issues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Earlier Friday, a Toronto hospital discharged a man who had Canada’s first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus.<\/p>\n

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre said he is now recovering at home along with his wife, who also became ill with the virus.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the course of the week, his status continued to improve to the point where he no longer required in-patient care,\u201d the hospital said in a statement. \u201cSunnybrook has liaised with Toronto Public Health, who will continue to monitor the patient in his home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man in his 50s travelled to Toronto from China last week and was Canada’s first case of the virus. The patient’s wife, who travelled with him, also became ill, but had less severe symptoms and has been in self-isolation at home.<\/p>\n

Canada’s other confirmed case is a person in British Columbia, who has also been in isolation at home. That case is also linked to recent travel.<\/p>\n

The novel coronavirus has now infected almost 10,000 people around the world and the World Health Organization has declared the outbreak a global health emergency.<\/p>\n

As of Friday evening, China counted 11,791 confirmed cases with a death toll of 259. The vast majority have been in Hubei province and its capital, Wuhan, where the first illnesses were detected in December. No deaths have been reported outside China.<\/p>\n

WHO has said most people who got the illness had milder cases, though 20 per cent experienced severe symptoms. Symptoms include fever and cough, and in severe cases, shortness of breath and pneumonia.<\/p>\n

Canadian officials have said the measures to prevent the spread of the illness in this country are working and there’s no need to change the plans.<\/p>\n

In the United States, officials issued a two-week quarantine order for the 195 Americans evacuated earlier this week from Wuhan.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 31, 2020.<\/p>\n

\u2014 with files from The Associated Press<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Canada now has four confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, though health officials say the latest Ontario case …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":242991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243739,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243738\/revisions\/243739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}