The first of five B.C. patients with coronavirus has recovered, the Ministry of Health and B.C.’s provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, announced Wednesday.
The patient no longer has symptoms of the virus, following two successive negative test results 24 hours apart. Henry also referred to the negative test of province’s first coronavirus patient during last week’s coronavirus press conference update.
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The four remaining B.C. patients with coronavirus are recovering in isolation at home, with monitoring from public-health teams.
The province’s fifth presumptive case of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) — a woman in her 30s who lives in the Interior Health region — has now been confirmed by the National Microbiology Laboratory.
Over the next few days, Health Canada will begin releasing repatriated Canadians from 14 days of quarantine in Trenton, Ont. and they will no longer be required to self-isolate or take any additional precautionary measures. Those residents returned to Canada from China.
Fourteen days is believed to be the longest incubation period for COVID-19.
Meanwhile, healthy Canadians from the Diamond Princess cruise ship will shortly be heading home, according to Canada’s foreign affairs minister, after weeks under quarantine. The ship, docked in Yokohama, Japan, has seen the largest outbreak of the virus outside China, with 634 passengers having tested positive at last count.
Among the infected are 47 Canadians who will have to remain in Japan for treatment.
Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Wednesday that passengers would be screened Thursday evening, Japan time _ mid-day in North America.
The passengers will each be issued a face mask and coloured wrist band before they are ushered off the ship to the Haneda Airport, according to a letter from government officials to the evacuees on board the ship.
Those who are cleared to travel will be taken to Canadian Forces Base Trenton for further screening before they are placed under another two-week quarantine at the Nav Centre in Cornwall, Ont.
Health Minister Patty Hajdu said there was a chance that those who tested negative for the virus and show no signs of symptoms may be released from quarantine early under the discretion of Canada’s top public-health doctor.
The evacuation comes just after Japanese officials broke the news that two passengers from the ship died after contracting the virus.
The two fatalities, a man and woman in their 80s who are both Japanese, were believed to have been infected before the quarantine began on the ship, Japanese health ministry official Masami Sakoi said Thursday.
Public health teams in B.C. have connected with other returning travellers to assess and monitor them for symptoms, continue to support those who have self-isolated or may be concerned about symptoms to ensure they are being cared for, and investigating the travel history of confirmed cases and contacting people at risk of exposure to ensure they are isolated, if needed, and monitored for symptoms.
According to the province the risk of this virus spreading within British Columbia remains low at this time.
According to the World Health Organization, as of Feb. 19, there have been 75,204 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, of which almost all — 74,280 — are in China. There have been 924 laboratory-confirmed cases outside of China, spread among 25 countries, including eight in Canada.
There have been 2,010 deaths related to COVID-19, with four outside of China, two in Japan, one in the Philippines and one in France.
— with files from Canadian Press
