Vaughn Palmer: Henry reduced to pleading for people to ‘do more’ in face of COVID-19 – Vancouver Sun

Vaughn Palmer: Henry reduced to pleading for people to ‘do more’ in face of COVID-19 – Vancouver Sun

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There were. But not a lot more answers.

Was he in contact with anyone else on his return? “There’s a small number of family contacts … they’re being monitored for symptoms.”

Where had he travelled? “We don’t have a map of where he went.”

Was he Chinese Canadian? “The person is resident here in Vancouver.”

After a few more questions along those lines, Henry put a stop to it: “So I’m not going to talk anymore about that person. I’ve told you what we know. Anything else is rumour.”

Rumours being one of her main concerns of the day.

“I think we need to be very careful about listening to rumours and third- and fourth-hand information,” she cautioned reporters. “What’s concerning to me, having been in the city of Toronto during the SARS outbreak, is how easily those rumours can lead to discrimination, inappropriate discrimination, against people.”

She expressed the hope that “the fact that we’re being open about this, that you know the details that you need to know, that we are on top of this, that people can be reassured the risk still is extremely low here.”

But as would prove to be the case throughout the year, the provincial health officer would be the judge of “the details that you need to know.”

Far from B.C. being unprepared, B.C. was ready for the arrival of the first case from China, according to Henry.

“This first case is not unexpected to us. We know that we have quite a lot of travel between areas in China and particularly Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, but other parts of B.C. as well. We have been on high alert for a number of weeks now.”

Published at Thu, 28 Jan 2021 02:40:12 +0000