No more cases of coronavirus are being investigated in Ontario
After testing 421 different people who had been exhibiting symptoms of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), Ontario's Ministry of Health has finally cleared its queue.
Today, for the first time since reporting an initial presumptive confirmed case of the disease on January 25, there are no cases of coronavirus under investigation in the province.
Ontario revealed the news at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning by updating its daily "status of cases" tally.
At present, 418 people have tested negative for COVID-19 within the province. Two were confirmed to be infected and still are, according to the province, while a third person has recovered to the point where they are no longer infectious.
Zero cases are currently under investigation, with no presumptive negative or positive results pending.
#coronavirus update per @680NEWS: Ontario now has no new coronavirus cases under investigation. 421 people have been tested in the province so far & nearly all were negative for the virus. The 3 people who tested positive were directly in Hubei and 1 has recovered already #onpoli pic.twitter.com/XHEzYLRfGX
— Chris Glover, MPP (@ChrisGloverMPP) February 18, 2020
This is after reaching a high of 62 suspected cases less than two weeks ago.
Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David Williams, told the Canadian Press last Monday that the number of people being tested for COVID-19 was declining as more time passed "since China imposed rigid travel restrictions."
Chinese government officials put the entire city of Wuhan, where the virus is thought to have originated, on lockdown late last month. An official period of quarantine began January 23.
Since that time, more than 60 countries have implemented "some form of immigration control on Chinese citizens," as CNN put it, to stop the deadly virus from spreading around the world.
At Ontario's largest airport, Pearson International in Toronto, passengers have been requested to self-report any symptoms (flu-like and respiratory) that could be caused by the coronavirus.
"Anyone who declares that they’ve been to Wuhan, China in the last two weeks will be referring to a border officer for further assessment," reads Pearson's website. "Those who are ill will be referred to hospital for testing."
Even asymptomatic travellers coming from China are being given information sheets at Pearson about who to contact if they should develop symptoms associated with coronavirus within 14 days of their arrival in Canada.
"As of 6am GVA time this morning, #China has reported 72,528 #COVID19 cases to WHO, incl. 1870 deaths.
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) February 18, 2020
In the past 24h, 🇨🇳 has reported 1,891 new cases, including both clinically- & lab-confirmed cases.
Outside 🇨🇳, there are now 804 cases in 25 countries, with 3 deaths"-@DrTedros
The 304 citizens who've been evacuated from Wuhan by Canada's federal government have been under quarantine for a two-week-long period as well.
These newer protective measures appear to be working, in terms of stopping new cases of COVID-19 from coming into Ontario — but the province isn't out of the woods just yet.
More than 70,000 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed globally to date, according to the World Health Organization, the vast majority of them in China, where 1,870 coronavirus-related deaths have been reported.
A total of 804 people across 25 countries outside of China have been confirmed as infected with the disease, three of them fatally.
The Canadian government is still warning citizens to avoid avoid all travel to the province of Hubei, where Wuhan is located, and the WHO maintains a global risk level of "high" for the 2019 coronavirus outbreak.
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