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Two cases of the new variant of the coronavirus, whose discovery in the United Kingdom led to the suspension of flights with the country last week, have been discovered in Canada, Canadian authorities announced on Saturday.
The province of Ontario, the most populous province in Canada and the second most affected in the country by the pandemic, reported today that the coronavirus mutation, which is believed to be easier to transmit than the original variant, has been detected in a couple .
Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate medical director, said in a statement that the couple infected with the variant “have no known history of travel, exposure or high-risk contacts.”
The two individuals are in self-isolation following the regulations of the Canadian health authorities.
The discovery of the first two cases of the coronavirus mutation comes three days after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would maintain the suspension of flights with the United Kingdom until January 6, 2021 due to the appearance of the new variant in south London.
On December 21, Canada initially suspended flights with the United Kingdom for 72 hours after British authorities announced the detection of the coronavirus mutation that could be up to 70% more contagious than the original virus.
Despite the suspension of flights, the Canadian health authorities had not ruled out that the new variant was already in Canada, although after the analysis of 25,000 samples of the virus, the mutation had not been detected.
The new variant has also been located in countries as far away as Sweden, Japan, France, Israel and Spain.
In addition, researchers have discovered two other new variants of the virus in Nigeria and South Africa.
Also today, the province of Ontario launched the lockdown of the entire province to try to slow the appearance of new cases of covid-19. Over the past 12 days, Ontario has recorded more than 2,000 cases a day. Today, the province said 2,142 had been detected.
According to Ontario forecasts, the number of covid-19 patients in intensive care units (ICU) could exceed 300 in the coming days. In the worst case scenario, the figure will rise to 1,500 by mid-January, 75% of the ICU beds in the province.
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