US and Europe were Ontario coronavirus patients' top travel destinations

Ontario health officials shared some statistics Saturday about the origin of the province’s known confirmed cases of COVID-19, including the most common countries patients visited who became sick after returning.

About three quarters of Ontario’s known coronavirus cases are travel related.

“Of those who had travelled, the US is the top destination they came from. The second most common destination was Europe,” Ontario’s Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe told reporters.

This makes sense, because the US now has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world, Yaffe said. The US now has more than 113,000 known cases, far more than the approximately 82,000 known cases in China.

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Of Ontario’s 1,142 known coronavirus cases, 16% are due to community spread, Yaffe added.

The remaining 10% are close contacts of other confirmed cases, she added.

Health officials revealed 91 healthcare workers have come down with COVID-19 so far, but it’s not known whether those workers caught the virus in clinical settings, in the community, or while travelling.