Coronavirus: Canada reports fourth case, a patient who tested negative at first
- Female university student in her 20s arrived in Toronto from Wuhan last week
- Ottawa gets Beijing’s nod to evacuate 196 citizens from outbreak epicentre
A fourth person in Canada has the coronavirus, first testing negative, then positive before recovering quickly as health officials scramble to get a handle on the fast-moving infection.
The female university student in her 20s arrived in Toronto on January 23 from Wuhan, China, the epicentre of the outbreak. Initially asymptomatic, she reported to hospital the next day, where she initially tested negative. A second test at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, confirmed the case as positive.
“It is clear that we are learning more and more about the coronavirus each day, and our testing procedures are evolving and getting more and more precise,” Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr David Williams said in a statement after a news conference in Toronto.
Health officials globally are struggling to understand the nature of the disease and how it is transmitted, as well as how to diagnose it. There are reports that it can be passed by people before they show symptoms but not all health officials believe this is the case.
There is still no “hard evidence” that a person without symptoms is infectious, Barbara Yaffe, Toronto’s associate chief medical officer of health said at the news conference.