The fourth case of the novel coronavirus in Canada was confirmed in London, Ontario, on Friday. This is the third case in the province.
Dr. David Williams, Chief Medical Officer of Health, and Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health, were joined by Dr. Vanessa Allen, Chief, Medical Microbiology, Public Health Ontario Laboratory, at a media briefing this afternoon, and say a female in her 20s arrived on the 23rd of January, and is located in London, Ontario.
The woman came back from Wuhan asymptomatic, according to Dr. Williams.
“A female in her 20s, arrived asymptomatic in Toronto on January 23 and was transported to London by way of a private vehicle. On January 24 the individual started to exhibit symptoms and that same day was assessed and tested at University Hospital, and released with follow up by the Middlesex-London Health Unit,” stated the London Health Sciences Centre in a statement.
“This individual has had limited exposure to other individuals and has otherwise been in isolation since January 24 with regular contact by the Middlesex-London Health Unit to monitor her condition.”
They added that she has now recovered and is well.
“I want to re-emphasize that the risk to Ontarians remains low,” said Dr. Williams.
“It is clear that we are learning more and more about the coronavirus each day, and our testing procedures are evolving and getting more and more precise, which is good news for everyone throughout Ontario and Canada.”
Earlier on Friday, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre announced that Canada’s first coronavirus patient was discharged from hospital.
“Over the course of the week, his status continued to improve to the point where he no longer required in-patient care,” read the statement.
Sunnybrook Health said the patient will remain in isolation at home.
Also on Friday morning, the province of Ontario said that 17 coronavirus cases are currently under investigation in the province.
The number of confirmed cases is now four, with three in Ontario, and one in BC. The first 2 cases in Ontario — a husband and wife in their mid-50s — are now confirmed to be at home.
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In an update on Thursday, Ontario health officials said there had been 67 cases tested for coronavirus, and 38 were negative.
Officials did confirm a “small number of people” under investigation were on the same flight as the confirmed couple. According to Toronto Public Health, the man and woman who were Ontario’s first confirmed cases recently returned from Wuhan/China on China Southern Airlines flight CZ311, which arrived in Toronto on January 22 from Guangzhou.
While the officials only released information on the January 22 flight, Air Canada announced this week that it would temporarily suspend all direct flights to Beijing and Shanghai from January 30 to February 29.
The suspension follows the Government of Canada’s advisory to avoid non-essential travel to mainland China in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency as a result of the outbreak on Thursday.
“There are now 98 cases in 18 countries outside China, including either cases of human-to-human transmission in four countries: Germany, Japan, Vietnam, and the United States of America,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization.
“So far we have not seen any deaths outside China, for which we must all be grateful,” he added. “Although these numbers are still relatively small compared to the number of cases in China, we must all act together now to limit further spread.”
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