good evening and thanks for joining us
we are continuing to monitor the
outbreak of the mysterious new corona
virus tonight the number of confirmed
cases in China keeps soaring nearly a
week into the biggest quarantine in
history and another presumptive case has
been identified here in Canada a man in
British Columbia who is in his 40s and
regularly goes to China to work as
isolated himself and is waiting for test
results there are two confirmed cases of
the corona virus in Ontario a husband
and wife both in their 50s who recently
came back from Wuhan the center of the
outbreak the virus has now spread to
Japan and Germany and in both cases
authorities say the people who are ill
did not travel to China themselves but
were in contact with someone who had the
German Ministry of Health now says four
people were infected after attending a
company training event last week with a
colleague from Shanghai as many as 40
people may have come in contact with the
woman in China there are now about 6,000
confirmed cases and at least 132 people
have died most of them in Wuhan the US
and the UK are sending passenger planes
to Wuhan to repatriate their citizens
there are 250 Canadians registered in
the region Foreign Affairs says 126 have
contacted the consulate asking for help
to get home but at this point Canada is
not sending a plane to get them we're
trying to contact everyone assess their
specific need for assisted repatriation
we're at the same time consulting with
their allies and and looking at the
different options that people are
considering the US and the UK have now
upgraded their travel warnings advising
citizens to avoid non-essential travel
to all of mainland China and several
Airlines are cutting back on flights to
China at this point Canada has not
expanded its Travel Warning and is still
advising people to avoid the Wuhan
region and who Bay province Redman
Shannon has our top story tonight as if
further evidence were needed that these
are extraordinary times young unasyn
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam wearing a
face mask an item she banned last year
during the pro-democracy protests Lam
announcing that visitor
hermits and most travel from the
mainland will be limited after Thursday
night casillas Hong Kongers like this
man think it's too little too late
eight cases have already been reported
in Hong Kong in Beijing the head of the
World Health Organization met with
Chinese President Xi Jinping they agreed
for a w-h-o team to join the 6,000
Chinese medical staff who've been sent
to the affected region the organization
says the emergency remains confined to
China but the global risk is high so far
it's going back with travelers to two
foreign countries where there's the home
country of somebody or travel as such
it's not wildly spreading outside of
China but again we have to be prepared
for in case it would in Wuhan stay TV
shows the much-hyped
building of a special new hospital some
prefabricated rooms already in place
most people living in the city remain
holed up at home mani shouting
encouragement to each other from
apartment windows we are not really sure
if they are reporting the truth or like
if they are under reporting the actual
numbers I think you're just like not
knowing what's actually going on and how
long it's gonna last like that's the
most scary of heart and cities near the
affected who Bay Province are increasing
checks to anyone arriving those with
high temperatures sent to hospital
immediately and more than a thousand
kilometers away in Beijing some empty
shelves and long lineups as the first
death from the virus is confirmed in the
capital Redmond Shannon Global News
London now to what we know about the
cases here in Canada here's Heather your
ex west
health officials say Canada's third
presumed case of novel coronavirus
did everything right this is a gentleman
who was well aware of what was going on
in China and when he returned he went
home and he voluntarily self isolated
the man had recently traveled to Wuhan
China but did not have any
symptoms until more than 24 hours after
he returned this person was not
symptomatic on his flight there's no
risk to people who aren't who are in
contact with somebody with no symptoms
but there are questions within the
global medical community around whether
or not that statement is true normally
with a corona virus we see more viral
shedding and more transmission when a
person is more symptomatic China has
reported there may be evidence of a
symptomatic transmission all of these
questions must and will be answered in
order to provide a proper risk
assessment the Chinese Embassy in Canada
is advising all Chinese nationals
returning from Wuhan to isolate
themselves for 14 days at home so far
all cases across North America have been
traced back to China the coming days and
weeks are likely to bring more confirmed
cases here and around the world
including the possibility of some person
to person spread Studies on the new
corona virus show that on average one
sick person can infect between 1.5 and
3.5 other people that makes it a bit
more infectious than most seasonal flu
strains in which sick people can infect
between 1 and 1.5 others but less
infectious than SARS which spreads from
one to two to five others it's why
public health officials are doing all
they can to prevent an outbreak
isolating and testing anyone who
traveled to WHO by province and has now
become ill we need to be very vigilant
there are people who have travelled who
are here who might be incubating this
virus who might be becoming sick in the
next couple of weeks and that's why it's
so critical that we maintain our focus
because the success of their efforts
will be measured in the days ahead
hether your ex West Global News Calgary
as this story keeps evolving there are
many questions and it's important to
balance fear with facts so to help us do
that I'm joined again by dr. Michael
guard him he's an infectious disease
specialist and chief of staff at Humber
River Hospital in Toronto dr. garden
let's start with the news of the
confirmed cases in Germany and Japan in
both cases the people had not traveled
to China the man in Germany was in
contact with a woman who had come from
Wuhan but apparently did not have any
symptoms until she was on the flight
back there
does that raise alarm bells for you
about the virus spreading and possibly
spreading when people don't have
symptoms well you know certainly seeing
cases that are occurring and in places
where this has been imported where
somebody who travelled has given it to
somebody else we've been we've been
looking for that the whole time along so
that isn't the big surprise the issue
here is how contagious is this virus
when people have mild symptoms and
honestly it's really hard to sort of set
world wide policy on one case right so
we really need to be cautious saying
that the virus is highly infectious in
that setting
typically with viruses people are mildly
contagious if they have minimal symptoms
and they're much more contagious if they
have a lot of symptoms so it's it's
possible it can certainly transmit if
people have mild disease or maybe even
no symptoms but it's certainly less
likely than if they're sick so is it too
early than to be definitive about the
transmissibility of this virus when
people are contagious and it how exactly
it's spreading absolutely I mean we need
to take a step back I mean typically
with other viruses what we've done is
we've looked at people where we we have
a good idea when they got infected and
then we're doing serial swabbing on them
to see at what point they start to shed
the virus at what point that they start
to develop symptoms none of that has
been done with this particular virus so
I think we are too early to get very
definitive about how it is transmitted
if we take a big step back though and
look at the epidemiology the spread
seems to be similar to what we saw
during SARS which is that people who are
sick are the most likely ones who are
actually spreading it well given the
unknowns and given what you just said
should people who have been to the wuhan
region B style self isolating as a
precaution right now that's not
recommended I mean it's a very good
question right now what we're looking at
is people who have who have symptoms
that may change over time but you can
imagine if we start to broaden that case
definition we're now anybody who comes
from Wuhan is isolated or take it even
further a lot of calls I've been getting
today is why are we isolating every
person who's even been in China you can
imagine that very quickly overwhelms the
public health system so early on we have
to be very sort of surgical than what
we're doing and if necessary we start
to move out we have to remember the area
that's been locked down we're talking 35
and some million people so the vast
majority of people from that region do
not have this virus okay
well watch and wait and hopefully speak
with you again dr. garden thank you
thanks for having me