In total, 30 people have died from this disease in Canada, and about 250 either have clear signs of the disease or are under observation. Since the authorities are quarantining everyone who may have been in contact with those who fell ill, about 7,800 people have been placed in home isolation. A quarantine has been declared in a school, one of whose students visited the hospital where the disease reappeared. Previously it was thought that ten days of isolation were enough, but the boy started coughing 12 days after his mother was admitted to the hospital. Now experts recommend a two-week quarantine.
Nurse Carol Tuff from Scarborough General Hospital, where the disease was first detected, has to undergo quarantine for the second time. It is one of four city hospitals where patients with atypical pneumonia are taken, which is causing growing discontent among medical staff. Nurses and doctors are demanding hazardous-duty pay. In total, the provincial government has already allocated $848 million to fight the infection.
Canada is lucky - all those who fell ill are concentrated in hospitals. The infection has not yet spread beyond the walls of medical institutions. True, two patients with signs of the dangerous disease appeared in a completely different part of Canada - in the province of British Columbia on the Pacific coast. Many immigrants from China and Hong Kong live there. Since the epidemic was contained even during its second outbreak, Canadian experts believe the worst is already over.
But tourists and foreign visitors hold a different opinion. In Toronto, symposiums, concerts, and sporting events are being cancelled. City hotels are only one-third full. Tourism in the neighboring province of Quebec has halved. Even the Grand Prix race, which traditionally takes place in Montreal in mid-June and always attracts many people, is not helping.
Foreign travel has also become more complicated for Canadians themselves. Libya has completely closed its border to residents of Canada, China, and Hong Kong, and other countries one after another are introducing screening for atypical pneumonia at their borders.