No Coronavirus Cases In Oxford County So Far

Tuesday, 10 March 2020 08:59

Southwestern Public Health says nobody in our region of Oxford, Elgin and St. Thomas has tested positive for the Coronavirus. A few people have been tested at local hospitals, however those tests all came back negative.

OXFORD COUNTY - The risk of getting the Coronavirus in Oxford County still remains very low.

Nobody has tested positive for the virus in the Southwestern Public Health region, which includes Oxford, Elgin and St. Thomas. A few people have been tested at local hospitals, however those tests all came back negative.

Canada now has at least 79 confirmed or presumptive cases of COVID-19 in Ontario, Alberta and Quebec. Canada has its first death of a patient diagnosed with COVID-19, who was in his 80s with a number of underlying health conditions and died at a long-term care home in North Vancouver.

Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Joyce Lock says you can still go about your daily lives in Oxford.

"We can continue on with our social activities as normal, because there is no community spread in our area and people don't have to worry about getting it from someone else here, locally. We do ask people who have travelled to impacted countries, if they have no symptoms to monitor themselves and if they develop symptoms of a cough or a fever or difficulty breathing, which are the symptoms of this Coronavirus infection that they self isolate at home and contact either their primary care doctor or the health unit to figure out how to get tested. So for people who have travelled, they need to use a bit of caution but for the rest of our citizens, they can carry on with routine activities."

Dr. Lock says this is a common cold type virus and the best way you can help to prevent the disease is by washing your hands frequently and coughing into a Kleenex or your elbow.

"You do the very same thing you do every year to try to protect yourself from getting a cold. Use good self hygiene, cough into a Kleenex or into your elbow and then immediately wash your hands afterwards. If you happen to have coughed onto a surface, then clean it. If you are just a person in the general public, be aware that some of these virus particles may have landed on some of the things you touch, so wash your hands frequently with soap and water and was thoroughly. So we say lather your hands up completely and make sure the lather reaches between your fingers and your wrist and then run your hands under water, rinse them thoroughly and dry them carefully."

Dr. Lock adds the majority of people who get the virus, experience mild symptoms.

"This is a common cold virus and 80 percent of people who get it, experience mild symptoms. Overall there are some people who are little bit more at risk but for the general public, using all those common sense precautions that we use for one another when we have a cold is what we need to think about."