Quinte Health Care officials say precautions are being taken at local hospitals in the wake of the coronavirus coming out of China.
Spokesperson Carly Baxter tells Quinte News that basic screening is already done as part of the triage process in local emergency departments, where patients are asked about their symptoms, travel history and possible contact with sick individuals and that in this case, if a patient had just returned from China and was displaying symptoms like a fever or cough, they would be asked to put on a mask and be evaluated in an airborne infection isolation room.
From there, Hastings Prince Edward Public Health would be contacted to see if more testing needed to be done and further precautions would be taken from there.
While several people in Canada are under observation for signs they may have contracted the coronavirus, no patients at local hospitals have been investigated locally, at this point.
