COVID-19 case in Montreal: authorities try to contact 61 people

The coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading rapidly around the world and Quebec is on the alert. The national director of public health, Dr Horacio Arruda, says he is monitoring the situation “hour by hour”, although no case has yet been reported in the province.

Quebec public health authorities are currently trying to contact 61 people – including 32 Quebecers – who had close contact with this Air Canada passenger, infected with COVID-19 and who stopped at Montreal airport. Trudeau on February 14.

We learned Sunday that this woman, from Iran, traveled from Istanbul to Montreal (with another airline than Air Canada), before boarding an Air Canada flight, in the direction of Vancouver. British Columbia officials were notified of his COVID-19 infection six days later, February 20.

“We are in the process of contacting the people who were close to the patient on the plane,” said Dr. Arruda. They are offered voluntary isolation and asked to be tested to make sure they have not caught the coronavirus. “

Only passengers who are up to three benches forward or three benches behind the infected woman are notified by the authorities. A decision questioned by microbiologist-infectiologist Karl Weiss in various media in recent days.

“It is cautious and adequate,” defends Horacio Arruda, stressing that this disease is transmitted by droplets. “In the case of tuberculosis, diseases transmitted by air, but which require close contact, it is the same kind of approach that we take. Arruda added that the patient was “not very symptomatic” during the trip.

Other details will follow.

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