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The vacation is awesome as you get tuned out of most of the news. At least that鈥檚 how it was for me. And it probably was for the best, as it saved me from total paranoia that I could develop if I knew more about the latest coronavirus breakout, while we were sitting in a big connecting Frankfurt airport.

Fortunately, I looked into it only after I got back, and since then, as many of you, I keep following the situation, which is at the least worrisome. Yes, there is a lot of effort put into it, and we are much further with science, but to stop a virus in our globalized, connected and constantly moving world is really hard, especially if it doesn鈥檛 happen during the first days of the outbreak.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the breakout of a new coronavirus an emergency for China, but the risk of becoming epidemic in other parts of the world remains low. So it is not a global health emergency. Yet? It鈥檚 hard to stop it, but it鈥檚 not impossible, so hopefully, this newly discovered respiratory illness will soon be history.

As of Monday night, China has reported more than 4,500 confirmed cases of the new virus with 106 deaths. (It鈥檚 about two per cent. To compare, the SARS mortality rate was about 10 per cent). But officials say the rate at which coronavirus is spreading is accelerating.

About 50 million people in China were isolated to prevent the disease from spreading. And while these are extreme, but needed measures, Canadian authorities said that even if we have a few cases here, their measures will be different.

On videos posted by colleagues, Wuhan with 11 million people looks like it was abandoned. The streets and stores of the ghost town are empty, hardly any vehicles, but dozers were working hard in an effort to put up a 1,000-bed hospital over the weekend. Videos of people collapsing on the streets add the apocalyptical notion to the already tense situation.

The first case of coronavirus was confirmed in Ontario last weekend, with the patient鈥檚 relative potentially being the second. The University of Saskatchewan cancelled all planned visits to China for the next several months. But the risk of a breakout in Canada as in other countries outside of China remains low.

While a lot of people fear that the new virus can hit the world as bad as SARS back in 2003, Canadian authorities announced late last week, that they already were much further ahead in the game. The virus that was not known to scientists just several weeks ago is now not new. They know how to test for it; they know how to work with it. But there are still a few concerns.听

First of all, it鈥檚 not clear if we can effectively screen for the new coronavirus. A few people who died because of the disease didn鈥檛 have a fever, which means that temperature screening, utilized at airports to control the outbreak, might be not as effective as we assumed.

Another concern is that fever-like symptoms are often not reported at the early stages, which means that people can have several contacts before they get treatment.

Another question that鈥檚 not fully answered yet is how easy the new virus transmits. Scientists say it spreads like the common cold or flu through airborne contact or contact with contaminated objects, but not through parcels from China. The virus can only survive a few hours in a dry environment and a few days in liquid one. So by the time your phone case makes it to Canada, even if someone sneezed on it, it鈥檚 already safe.

The economic reminiscences of the breakout in China and around the world are another story. People don鈥檛 travel through their most intense spending time, people don鈥檛 go abroad, and global stocks are vibrating as worries over disease outbreak deepen.

And while there is a lot of uncertainty around the virus, health authorities are trying to protect people from misinformation, which may even worsen the situation. In an effort to be transparent about their progress with coronavirus, Toronto Public Health has set up a website that has risk level updates, describes the symptoms, provides treatment information and various federal and provincial resources.

So before panicking, check your information in trusted sources and stay healthy!

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