| Toronto police on Wednesday afternoon put yellow tape around the parking lot at Scarborough's Grace Hospital, the site of most Canadian cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
Sgt. Jim Muscat said the tape marks a temporary landing spot for a helicopter. It does not have a proper landing area.
He said he did not know why the landing spot is necessary.
Earlier Wednesday, the Ontario government declared a health emergency to try to stop the spread of SARS.
"We felt that because there were new suspect cases that this was warranted," Health Minister Tony Clement said.
However, "the risk of contracting SARS is still very low," said Dr. Colin D'Cunha, the province's commissioner of public health.
He said the disease is apparently spread by contact with someone who has it, and the cases in Ontario "are the result of unprotected contact with initial cases before we were aware of SARS."
There are 23 people in Toronto, many of them health-care workers, showing symptoms and under forcible quarantine at home.
Two Peel residents, just west of Toronto, are being monitored after showing SARS symptoms. They are health-care workers who attended to SARS parients, Peel said.
Hundreds more people may have to be quarantined if they came into contact with the disease, health officials said.
The Ontario government earlier ordered anyone who may have SARS, and those who have had close contact with them, to stay at home for 10 days.
Now, it's set up an around-the-clock command centre to co-ordinate information on the spread of the virus.
Women's College Hospital in downtown Toronto will open a clinic Thursday where people with symptoms can go to be assessed.
Scarborough Grace Hospital was closed to new patients and visitors on Tuesday, and the nearby David Lewis Public School sent its students home after three of them came down with high fevers, an early symptom of the illness.
But there was no medical reason for the school to close, said Dr. Sheela Basrur, Toronto's medical officer of health.
"We recommended the school remain open and the daycare remain open because there was no reason from a public-health standpoint to close those facilities," she said.
As well as Toronto residents who may have come into contact with the virus, travellers who went recently to China's Guandong Province, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore are at risk, the province said.
Health officials in Ottawa are investigating a possible case in a man who travelled to one of the source countries. They've recommended voluntary quarantine for his family and medical workers who treated him.
SARS first arrived in Toronto a month ago, when a woman died after returning from from a trip to Hong Kong.
One of the first patients to contract SARS in Canada was admitted to Scarborough Grace. At the time, no one knew he had SARS.
"None of the people who are ill at this point were taking precautions when they were taking care of patients, simply because we didn't know what we were dealing with," said Dr. Mary Verncombe, an infection prevention specialist.
Source: CBC News (Canada) | |
