(The Rochester, N.Y., Democrat and Chronicle posted the following article on its website on April 21.)
TORONTO — Fears of more widespread SARS worries in southern Ontario flared Sunday with news that a nurse receiving treatment for the illness rode a commuter train on two occasions — possibly infecting at least six other people — before she was diagnosed as a probable case.
The nurse, a resident of nearby Burlington who’s in her 30s, was likely exposed while working in the SARS unit at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, where she’s now in isolation undergoing treatment, public health officials said while urging anyone who may have ridden GO Transit trains with the woman to come forward.
What started out as a quiet Easter on the SARS front quickly turned into a public-alert priority after Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement released information about the case, which he called a “potential new outbreak of SARS” — a respiratory illness that has killed 14 Canadians.
At a news conference after Clement’s comments on CTV’s Question Period, Dr. Bob Nosal of Halton Region and Dr. Barbara Yaffe of Toronto’s public health department issued an advisory to any commuters who may have been riding the GO train with the nurse on specific occasions on April 14 and 15.