Novel coronavirus now more deadly than SARS
Posted February 9, 2020 8:52 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO (660 NEWS) – The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Canada has increased to seven this weekend. There are now four confirmed cases in B.C. and three in Ontario.
This comes as the death toll in mainland China has now surpassed SARS.
On top of those cases here in Canada, there are seven Canadians with the new coronavirus onboard a cruise ship just outside of Tokyo.
The Diamond Princess cruise ship remains under quarantine.
The death toll from the novel coronavirus has now passed 800 in Mainland China which is higher than the SARS death toll in 2002 and 2003.
SARS killed 774 people in total and sickened just over eight-thousand mostly in Mainland China and Hong Kong.
Here in Canada, 44 people died during the SARS outbreak.
Peter Hall with The School of Public Health and Health Systems at The University of Waterloo says fear and misinformation continues to spread across the country.
“It seems that we do react with fear a lot more readily when the health threat is an infectious illness than when it’s a chronic illness”
“In this day and age that’s kind of ironic because the major limiting factor for the human life-span is a chronic illness” added Hall.
So far there have been no Canadian deaths reported as a result of the new coronavirus.
