Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: https://www.macleans.ca/society/health/the-coronavirus-cant-be-contained-are-you-ready/
The coronavirus can’t be contained. Are you ready? What will Canada do when it hits our cities, schools and hospitals?
The chance to contain COVID-19 has passed.
by Aaron Hutchins and Marie-Danielle Smith
Feb 28, 2020
Dr. Vanessa Allen received a text in late January from the medical director for infection prevention and control at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. He needed to chat.
Allen is chief of medical microbiology at Public Health Ontario’s laboratory, which had recently started testing samples for the 2019 novel coronavirus, all of which had come back negative to that point. Jerome Leis at Sunnybrook was getting in touch because he had a case on its way that would likely be different.
A 56-year-old man had arrived at Sunnybrook that day with a fever and dry cough. The patient had just returned from a three-month visit to Wuhan, China, leaving two days before the Chinese government shut down the city’s buses, trains, ferries and airport. An X-ray of his lungs showed results consistent with a viral pneumonia.
The lab stayed open all night working on the specimen; they needed to be absolutely sure one way or the other. Fortunately, Chinese scientists had already determined the genetic code for the new coronavirus and shared the results internationally. “During SARS [in 2003], it took us more than four months to figure out what the virus was,” Allen says. “We didn’t have a test. We didn’t know who had it and who didn’t.”...
The coronavirus can’t be contained. Are you ready? What will Canada do when it hits our cities, schools and hospitals?
The chance to contain COVID-19 has passed.
by Aaron Hutchins and Marie-Danielle Smith
Feb 28, 2020
Dr. Vanessa Allen received a text in late January from the medical director for infection prevention and control at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. He needed to chat.
Allen is chief of medical microbiology at Public Health Ontario’s laboratory, which had recently started testing samples for the 2019 novel coronavirus, all of which had come back negative to that point. Jerome Leis at Sunnybrook was getting in touch because he had a case on its way that would likely be different.
A 56-year-old man had arrived at Sunnybrook that day with a fever and dry cough. The patient had just returned from a three-month visit to Wuhan, China, leaving two days before the Chinese government shut down the city’s buses, trains, ferries and airport. An X-ray of his lungs showed results consistent with a viral pneumonia.
The lab stayed open all night working on the specimen; they needed to be absolutely sure one way or the other. Fortunately, Chinese scientists had already determined the genetic code for the new coronavirus and shared the results internationally. “During SARS [in 2003], it took us more than four months to figure out what the virus was,” Allen says. “We didn’t have a test. We didn’t know who had it and who didn’t.”...