Sask. remains free of Wuhan virus
Saskatchewan still has no confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus, although 13 people who recently travelled from China to the province have been tested and seven await their test results.
Dr. Saqib Shahab, the province’s chief medical health officer, said in a media update Thursday that anyone coming to Saskatchewan from the Chinese province of Hubei should call Healthline immediately upon arrival.
So far, 50 calls have been received, with 13 people being recommended for testing. Test results from the first six were negative and the other seven are pending.
The federal government is also asking anyone who has recently travelled to the province of Hubei to stay isolated for two weeks and monitor themselves closely for symptoms. People coming in from other parts of China are asked to monitor themselves and to call Healthline at the first sign of symptoms.
“We still feel that the risk currently remains low and the way to keep it low at the moment is following the updated recommendations,” said Shahab. “For the general public ... we should be aware but not concerned at this point, and as the issue evolves obviously we’ll know more.”
For those who have not recently visited China, Shahab said there is no cause for concern as there has not been any reports of person-to-person transmission of the new coronavirus in Canada at this point.
Despite the low risk for the province’s general population, Gordon Asmundson, a psychology professor at the University of Regina, said he has noticed some people become anxious about the illness.
“Some people are responding with a lot of fear and anxiety, just because we really don’t know much about this,” he said. “People start to sometimes jump to negative or catastrophic conclusions in the absence of information.”
To combat this lack of information about the new coronavirus, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) announced on Wednesday it was seeking researchers to submit proposals for a “rapid research response to contribute to global efforts to contain the 2019 Novel Coronavirus outbreak.”
CIHR said it wants researchers to look into both medical countermeasures and social and policy countermeasures.
Asmundson is working together with a team of other researchers from across Canada and the U.S. to submit a proposal to the CIHR to study the fear and anxiety caused by the new coronavirus. He said sometimes a lack of information leads people to react out of fear by not leaving their homes, becoming xenophobic or taking protective measures that may not actually be effective.
Surgical mask sales surging in Regina is an example of this, he said.
People believe the masks will help protect them when, in reality, they are not able to keep someone from contracting the virus.
Shahab confirmed that the Ministry of Health is not recommending people wear masks and noted that masks are only useful if you are concerned about transmitting an illness to those around you. Only for those who have recently been to China or have a cold is a mask useful.
“But otherwise, if you’re out and about there’s no value in using a mask,” he said.
Asmundson encouraged people to consider what they are basing their reactions on: emotion or information.
“People may have a cough and they may have a fever and they may start to worry and wonder, you know, was I in contact with somebody? Where was I?” he said.
“It’s hard not to be emotional. We’re being told this is a viral outbreak. Words like that, they pique our attention, right, and they get us emotional. But my advice would be to not respond on the basis of that emotion, but to respond on the basis of the information we have.”