U of W mobilizes to lessen anxiety over coronavirus
Online statement says chances of exposure in Ontario remote
The phone lines into Student Health Services at the University of Windsor have been busy with calls of concern about the coronavirus.
The university has more than 4,000 international students, including 660 from China where the virus has killed more than 560 people and infected more 28,000.
Questions and rumours have been prevalent in the community at large, which is why local health officials provided an update Thursday.
Board members for Windsor Regional Hospital got an encouraging message Thursday from hospital CEO and president David Musyj and Dr. Wajid Ahmed, the medical officer of health for the Windsor-essex County Health Unit.
“There are no positive cases here,” Musyj said. “As a group, we are ready to handle them if they do present. The risk is very, very low but we are more than capable of handling it.”
Ahmed added: “We are happy to say we have a plan in place but we do not have any cases in the community.
“We are working together to ensure the safety of our community. It’s our top priority.”
University officials conducted an awareness program for Chinese students to ensure they knew about the supports available to them, said Chris Busch, associate vice-president of enrolment management.
“It’s more to convey information,” Busch said about the awareness program.
The university put out a statement on its website about the coronavirus and Dr. Matt Scholl, a lead physician with the university’s Student Health Services, did a two-minute Q&A video on Youtube.
“It was to dispel some of the anxieties that are going on amongst the students,” Scholl said Thursday.
“It has diminished some of the phone calls we’ve been getting.”
In his video address, Scholl outlined symptoms of coronavirus and the low risk it presents to the general population.
A student at Western Ontario in London was diagnosed with novel coronavirus last week, making her the third confirmed case in Ontario. The other two cases were in Toronto.
In China, more than 60 million people remain locked down as the country tries to contain the outbreak.
Scholl said every student who comes to the SHS clinic is screened by a registered nurse and questioned about their symptoms and travel history.
If the student is from China, Scholl tries to “get a sense of their anxiety” by asking about their family back home.
“What I’m hearing is they’ve either relocated or they’re hunkering down, but there’s a general feeling that the family is deemed safe,” he said.
Busch said mental-health services and counselling are available at the Student Counselling Centre and students can download the MYSSP app to their phone for access to 24/7 tele-counselling services.
“While the university understands that this is an important matter and that ongoing news coming out of China is concerning, know that the risk for persons living in Ontario is low and that there is a robust public health network to identify and manage this kind of situation,” the university’s online statement said.
A scheduled reciprocal learning exchange trip to China this spring involving 20 University of Windsor students in teachers college has been cancelled.
“We have cancelled the trip,” said Shijing Xu, the professor who co-ordinates the reciprocal exchange program.
“This is sad and disappointing for our students.”
The students were scheduled to be in China from mid-march to mid-june.
There were 16 student teachers from China who spent 12 weeks at several schools within the Greater Essex County District School Board last fall.
The Canadian government has issued an advisory to avoid all non-essential travel to China and to avoid all travel to the Hubei province.
St. Clair College has also put out information on its website about the virus. There are 132 Chinese International students enrolled this year.
The Ontario government has launched a dedicated web page providing daily updates on coronavirus at ontario.ca.