First coronavirus patient discharged from Toronto hospital

Jan 31 2020, 3:55 pm

Canada’s first coronavirus patient has been discharged from hospital.

According to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, on Friday morning, they discharged the patient who was hospitalized last week with the novel coronavirus.

“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.

As of Friday morning, the Ontario government said that 17 coronavirus cases are currently under investigation in the province.

The number of confirmed cases remains at three, with two in Ontario, and one in BC. The two in Ontario, a husband and wife in their mid-50s, are now confirmed to be at home.

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.”

Daily Hive StaffDaily Hive Staff

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