The corona virus are amongst us all the time. We have the so-called calm corona virus which results in respiratory inflections with runny nose, and cough and sore throat, mostly during winter time.
There are some corona virus strains like the new novel corona virus which has amore severe presentation of symptoms similar to what we had in the past with SARS ll and more recently MERS-CoV virus.
This being said, it seems based on current data that the new or the novel corona virus is somewhere in the middle in terms of severity between our common corona viruses and SARS and MERS. So, from an HHS perspective, the main emphasis at this point is on screening.
We want tomake sure that no patient gets into our system without us knowing that the patient was potentially exposed to a patient with the novel corona virus ora patient with a relevant travel history.
This being said, this definition, of what we call the case definition, may change any time and what I'm telling you right now may be different later today. For most people it will not make a major differences when they get in to a hospital, it being at Hamilton health sciences or any of the other hospitals.
The screening consists of questions you're being asked when you get registered or when you're going through triage, and they will ask you whether you have a relevant travel history and whether you have any respiratory symptoms. This being said,this is not a new concept. We used to ask those questions previously as well.
But,now we do react if you would be telling us, "Oh I was in Wuhan and I have a cough at this point of time." If that's the case you would be isolated in a private room, people seeing you would be wearing gowns and masks and gloves just to make sure that if you have that virus that it wouldn't transmit.
And then you would need to get tested and we would have to wait for that result. But, as you see, that only applies to those patients who had a exposure or potential exposure to the virus.
For everyone else it's status quo, nothing would change other than the fact that you would need to respond to those questions upon admission.
There are some corona virus strains like the new novel corona virus which has amore severe presentation of symptoms similar to what we had in the past with SARS ll and more recently MERS-CoV virus.
This being said, it seems based on current data that the new or the novel corona virus is somewhere in the middle in terms of severity between our common corona viruses and SARS and MERS. So, from an HHS perspective, the main emphasis at this point is on screening.
We want tomake sure that no patient gets into our system without us knowing that the patient was potentially exposed to a patient with the novel corona virus ora patient with a relevant travel history.
This being said, this definition, of what we call the case definition, may change any time and what I'm telling you right now may be different later today. For most people it will not make a major differences when they get in to a hospital, it being at Hamilton health sciences or any of the other hospitals.
The screening consists of questions you're being asked when you get registered or when you're going through triage, and they will ask you whether you have a relevant travel history and whether you have any respiratory symptoms. This being said,this is not a new concept. We used to ask those questions previously as well.
But,now we do react if you would be telling us, "Oh I was in Wuhan and I have a cough at this point of time." If that's the case you would be isolated in a private room, people seeing you would be wearing gowns and masks and gloves just to make sure that if you have that virus that it wouldn't transmit.
And then you would need to get tested and we would have to wait for that result. But, as you see, that only applies to those patients who had a exposure or potential exposure to the virus.
For everyone else it's status quo, nothing would change other than the fact that you would need to respond to those questions upon admission.
