WTB
Resident
Two Edmontonians vacationing in China were quarantined this week while Chinese authorities searched for travellers who might have been in contact with a 19-year-old student who had recently returned from Canada.
The student tested positive for the H1N1 virus Wednesday and was being treated in isolation in the eastern city of Jinan, the official Xinhua news agency said. He was the country's second confirmed case of the influenza virus in a week.
The Edmontonians, who asked not to be identified, said they were placed in quarantine Tuesday because they were on the same Air Canada flight to Beijing as the student, and sat within six rows of him.
"Myself and my travelling companion were apprehended by Chinese authorities yesterday at our hotel in central Beijing," one Edmonton resident said in an e-mail. "We were part of a tour group, organized through a Canadian tour company, that is travelling across China throughout May.
"At one point (Friday) the Chinese health officials claimed I had H1N1 and had to go to the hospital. They insisted I was running a fever when in fact we'd had our temperature taken an hour or two earlier and I
wasn't running a fever. After a few frantic phone calls with the Canadian Embassy -- who insisted that the Chinese authorities must be right, and that I should just do whatever they say -- the Chinese doctors came back and took my temperature again only to discover I wasn't running a fever. Someone from the Chinese government called back and said, 'Oops, we made a mistake, you don't have H1N1 after all.' As you can imagine, that was more than a little stressful, especially because no one in our situation spoke more than very basic English."
With a clean bill of health, the two were released and allowed to go on their way. "They even gave us some flowers on the way out of the hospital," one said in an email.
The Edmontonians had been quarantined with about 100 other travellers thought to have come into contact with the student, who apparently spent three days untracked in Beijing before leaving Monday by train for Jinan.
The hotel where the student stayed in Beijing was sealed off and staff wearing masks could be seen putting bundles of bed sheets in a van.
Alberta Health and Wellness said Friday no new H1N1 cases had been reported in the province, leaving the total confirmed number at 67. Five people have been hospitalized with the flu. One of them, a 39-year-old woman from the Gift Lake M?tis Settlement, died in hospital after contracting the flu. The woman also had asthma and diabetes, and an autopsy was unable to determine whether the flu virus played a role in her death.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Health/Edmontonians+quarantined+China+over+fears/1603816/story.html
Do they really think the could stop the virus from coming to China? As the virus spread, that fact is a utopia.
WTB
The student tested positive for the H1N1 virus Wednesday and was being treated in isolation in the eastern city of Jinan, the official Xinhua news agency said. He was the country's second confirmed case of the influenza virus in a week.
The Edmontonians, who asked not to be identified, said they were placed in quarantine Tuesday because they were on the same Air Canada flight to Beijing as the student, and sat within six rows of him.
"Myself and my travelling companion were apprehended by Chinese authorities yesterday at our hotel in central Beijing," one Edmonton resident said in an e-mail. "We were part of a tour group, organized through a Canadian tour company, that is travelling across China throughout May.
"At one point (Friday) the Chinese health officials claimed I had H1N1 and had to go to the hospital. They insisted I was running a fever when in fact we'd had our temperature taken an hour or two earlier and I
wasn't running a fever. After a few frantic phone calls with the Canadian Embassy -- who insisted that the Chinese authorities must be right, and that I should just do whatever they say -- the Chinese doctors came back and took my temperature again only to discover I wasn't running a fever. Someone from the Chinese government called back and said, 'Oops, we made a mistake, you don't have H1N1 after all.' As you can imagine, that was more than a little stressful, especially because no one in our situation spoke more than very basic English."
With a clean bill of health, the two were released and allowed to go on their way. "They even gave us some flowers on the way out of the hospital," one said in an email.
The Edmontonians had been quarantined with about 100 other travellers thought to have come into contact with the student, who apparently spent three days untracked in Beijing before leaving Monday by train for Jinan.
The hotel where the student stayed in Beijing was sealed off and staff wearing masks could be seen putting bundles of bed sheets in a van.
Alberta Health and Wellness said Friday no new H1N1 cases had been reported in the province, leaving the total confirmed number at 67. Five people have been hospitalized with the flu. One of them, a 39-year-old woman from the Gift Lake M?tis Settlement, died in hospital after contracting the flu. The woman also had asthma and diabetes, and an autopsy was unable to determine whether the flu virus played a role in her death.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Health/Edmontonians+quarantined+China+over+fears/1603816/story.html
Do they really think the could stop the virus from coming to China? As the virus spread, that fact is a utopia.
WTB