Fifth person in B.C. presumptively confirmed for new coronavirus
Posted February 14, 2020 4:24 pm.
Last Updated February 14, 2020 7:01 pm.
A fifth case of the novel coronavirus has been presumptively confirmed in British Columbia.
Provincial health officer Bonnie Henry says a woman in her 30s returned from Shanghai, China, in the past week through Vancouver’s airport before travelling by car to her home in the Interior health region.
Henry says the woman wore a mask on the plane and contacted health officials when she had symptoms of an illness before being tested positive Tuesday for the virus called COVID-19.
She says officials will be contacting passengers who sat three rows ahead and behind the woman on the aircraft that arrived from China but the risk to them is “very, very low.”
Henry says the first person to be tested for the virus in the province is recovering well and has tested negative in the first of two tests that would indicate the virus no longer exists.
She says 715 tests have been done on 500 people returning from China based on a low threshold for testing of the virus that originated in Hubei province.
The World Health Organization has named the new coronavirus COVID-19.
Watch: More than 1,700 healthcare workers infected with COVID-19, says China
