Risk of coronavirus is ‘low’ in Simcoe County, local doctors say

The risk of contracting a case of the new coronavirus in Simcoe County remains “low,” according to two local doctors.

“That’s no different from the two first cases in Canada, which were in Toronto.”

One confirmed case and another “presumptive” case of the coronavirus have been reported in Toronto. The two people who are affected are married and travelled to Toronto from Wuhan, China, which is believed to be the epicentre of the outbreak.

But as the new coronavirus spreads, the discussion will no longer be about who’s travelled to China but about people coming in contact with the illness in various places around the world, said Chris Tebbutt, the vice-president of academic and medical affairs and a physician specializing in pulmonary medicine at the Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) in Barrie.

“Given this particular illness, we had a lot of talks specifically about how we would prepare for this,” Tebbutt said.

If a person comes to the RVH sick, there are a couple of criteria that determine whether that person will be put in isolation, according to Tebbutt.

“We would look for the contact risk, so if in the last two weeks, they had been in Wuhan, China…or they’d been in contact with someone who actually had the coronavirus infection,” Tebbutt said.

“The second category is that there has to be some sort of clinical illness, so some combination of a respiratory syndrome, fever, cough, possibly shortness of breath.”

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According to Lee, there are a number of protocols in place if a sick person visits a hospital or health care provider.

The health care workers will screen and put a mask on the patient, protect themselves and inform the health unit of a person who’s been potentially affected, Lee said.

“We would then work with them in order to provide recommendations around testing and also recommendations on how to protect people around them, as well as potentially, if there is a case, we would be able to then trace their contacts in order to provide information to those contacts and potentially assess them as well for that disease,” Lee said.

The Simcoe Muskoka health unit is also working within its infectious diseases emergency response plan.

Provincial screening recommendations are being provided to health care facilities, and the disease is now reportable to public health, which means public health can track and investigate cases of the virus and close contacts.

“Since 2003, since SARS, the health unit has been working very closely with our front line healthcare providers, our hospitals and also our citizens to be prepared,” Lee said.

The coronavirus is a new respiratory virus with pneumonia-like symptoms that emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019.

Symptoms are usually mild to moderate and can include runny nose, headache, cough, sore throat and a general feeling of being unwell.

— With files from Ryan Rocca