While the risk of the new coronavirus remains low for our region, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit is putting in place measures to protect residents should the virus appear.
“The virus has not been identified in Canada, but we know that diseases don’t respect borders and can spread,” said Dr. Charles Gardner, Medical Officer of Health for the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit. “Based on our previous experience with SARS, we know we have to be ready if and when it appears, and that means working with both the province and our health care partners to ensure we have a coordinated response.”
The health unit is actively 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, meaning that public health can track and investigate cases of the disease and close contacts.
The coronavirus is a new respiratory virus with pneumonia-like symptoms that emerged in Wuhan City, China, late last year. Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that cause illness from the common cold to more severe diseases, such as SARS. Although this new strain of coronavirus probably originated in animals, person-to-person spread may now be occurring.
Human coronaviruses most commonly spread from an infected person to others just like influenza or a cold by coughing and sneezing, close personal contact, such as touching or shaking hands, or touching an object or surface with the virus on it, then touching your mouth, nose, or eyes. Symptoms are usually mild to moderate and can include runny nose, headache, cough, sore throat, and a general feeling of being unwell.
If you have a fever and symptoms of lower respiratory illness (cough and feeling unwell) AND have traveled from Wuhan City, China in the 14 days before your symptoms started, or have been in close contact with a person who may have this infection, you should be assessed by a health care provider. If at all possible, make sure to call ahead to let them know you’re coming so that infection control measures can be put in place.
You can protect yourself by washing your hands often with soap and water, or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer if your hands are not visibly dirty. You can help to reduce the spread of respiratory infections such as coronavirus by covering your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when coughing or sneezing and by staying home when you are sick.
For more, see www.smdhu.org or call Health Connection at 705-721-7520 or 1-877-721-7520, weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Don’t miss out on Doppler!
Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox three times per week!
Correct me if I’m wrong here but viruses are pretty tiny little items and I wonder about the effectiveness of paper masks for one thing. We use more secure looking masks, with canisters and a massive rubber face cover just to work with the remains of sanding and insulation dust. and these particles are pretty massive compared to a virus.
The efficiency of the seal between the paper mask and the face, the fact that they liquid covering the eyes is exposed and just the general filtering capability of a paper mask makes me wonder if this is not merely a bit of window dressing to help people feel like they are doing something when actually they are not.
Also, aircraft are notorious for mixing germs inside their cabins. With the recycled air it is virtually a guarantee that if one person has any air carried disease then all the passengers will be exposed to that disease over a 10 hour flight. Maybe what saves us is that many passengers are immune by virtue of a previous encounter with many things like colds and I think that there may be a sort of minimum number of pathogens needed to actually successfully infect a person as most of us have pretty good immune systems naturally. I’m not sure about this but wonder if a single virus can actually do the job or if maybe a few hundred are generally needed. If someone knowledgeable on this aspect can enlighten me I’d appreciate it.
Bottom line is that with now 50 million people in quarantine in China during what is normally their busiest travel time of the year, schools and public meetings closed and cases showing up all around the world now, maybe we should have shut down air travel earlier???
This might not be good!
I hope that Canada is implementing checks at our airports especially Toronto and Vancouver This is serious and we are not immune to this virus