Visitors from Wuhan ‘certain’ to have infected Vancouver woman with coronavirus, making her British Columbia’s second patient

Visitors from the central China city of Wuhan appear to have infected a Vancouver woman with the new coronavirus, likely making her British Columbia’s second and Canada’s fifth confirmed case, local health authorities said.

Provincial health officer Bonnie Henry said health officials were “quite certain” that someone in the small group of visitors had infected the woman in her 50s, and authorities were now trying to trace their recent movements.

The group and the woman were under isolation in the same home, said Henry, who added that the patient was in a stable condition. But despite the apparent case of human-to-human transmission of the disease, none of the visitors had shown any symptoms.

The woman fell ill a few days ago, and on Monday tested positive for the virus, said Henry at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon. The visitors had left Wuhan before travel restrictions were imposed on the city, the epicentre of the disease’s outbreak.

She said efforts were under way to “trace back any movements that these people have had” and identify anyone who had had close contact with them.

But she said the group appeared to have been “well aware” of the Wuhan outbreak and its implications and had been “minimising contact with people outside the home”.