Coronavirus: Canada may order border closures, urgently seeks to hire nurses

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday said he would not rule out closing the nation’s borders or forcing people arriving from abroad to go into self-isolation to help combat a coronavirus outbreak.

Asked whether Canada might shut its frontiers to Europe or the United States, Trudeau told CTV: “We have taken some very strong measures and we are not taking anything off the table.”

So far at least 249 Canadians have tested positive and one person has died.

Canada’s public health agency on Sunday posted an advert for nurses, citing “an urgent need”.

Nurses were needed to manage and control communicable diseases and make determinations about the risk to public health posed by foreign visitors, it said.

The premier of Quebec, Canada’s second most populous province, called on Trudeau to seal off the country.