Canada wasn’t worried when COVID surfaced

By GILLIAN SLADE on December 30, 2020.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade

The first reports of a pneumonia-like virus in China were just starting to emerge across the world a year ago.

Wuhan hospital notified the centre for disease control on Dec. 27, 2019 of a “cluster” of pneumonia cases in that city, which is the capital of Hubei province in China.

There is one report from Dec. 21 of Wuhan doctors noticing pneumonia cases with unknown cause and another on Christmas Day indicating that two medical staff in the Wuhan hospital had been diagnosed with the virus.

On Dec. 30 Dr. Li Wenliang warned a group of doctors that there was a possible outbreak of what appeared to be severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

In Canada it was on the last day of the year, Dec. 31, 2019, that reports surfaced through international media. The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission stated that an investigation had found no obvious human-to-human transmission.

“Chinese health officials have no idea how the virus is spreading or where it originated, but experts are tracking the progress of the outbreak in an attempt to halt its spread,” reads one report from the time.

The South China Morning Post called the illness “an unknown pneumonia.”

It was suggested that many of the people that had become ill worked in the fishing industry and worked in a local seafood market. The Wuhan seafood market was sealed.

Reports indicated that about seven individuals were in serious condition but there had not been any deaths related to the virus.

A Chinese newspaper reported that those that were ill had high fevers and were not responding to treatment with antibiotics.

There did not appear to be any significant concern in other parts of the world but the World Health Organization was asked for additional information.

It would be almost a month later that China introduced quarantine restrictions on a massive scale.

The News carried a Canadian Press story on Jan. 25, 2020 with the headline: “Mass coronavirus quarantines seen in China won’t happen in Canada.”

Scary images of what was happening in a Chinese city with 11 million people would not be repeated here.

“Absolutely not,” said Dr. Peter Donnelly, Public Health Ontario, in the story on Jan. 25, 2020. “If a case comes here, and it is probably likely that we will have a case here, it will still be business as normal.”

While Canada had been in the thick of it with SARS, said Donnelly, the situation with this virus was very different. Hospitals had better isolation facilities and a reliable test was available to detect the coronavirus within 24 hours.

“This was a disease unknown to science only two weeks ago and we now have the full genetic fingerprint of the virus and we have a test, which is specific and reliable,” said Donnelly. “In situations like this, speed and certainty are both very important.”

At the end of December 2019 there were no reports or press conferences in Alberta yet to discuss the possibilities.