The Ontario government has declared a health emergency and is prepared to enforce a quarantine.

There are 23 people in Toronto, many of them health-care workers, showing symptoms of SARS, and under forcible quarantine at home.

But hundreds more people may have to be quarantined if they came into contact with the disease, health officials said.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Air Canada was screening passengers. There hasn’t been much mention of a Toronto doctor who contracted SARS and the tracking of this physican’s patients. It is apparent Toronto Health Officials are co-ordinating efforts, the SARS hotline is 24/7, The Tele-Health Ontario number is available for SARS calls, and a round the clock command post to track reports is established. SARS in Canada is following the same pattern as in Hong Kong, Singapore and China. 900 people have been quarantined in Singapore.
This is an extraordinary measure, as Canadians are isolated according to the Globe and Mail.

Sheela Basrur, Toronto’s medical officer of health, said yesterday her office is racing to track other patients or friends who came in contact with those sick health workers, an effort that includes local school boards.

…..SARS will be included as a reportable, communicable and virulent disease under the Health Protection and Promotion Act, which lets officials quarantine people against their will.(bolding mine)

That measure most often is applied in cases of tuberculosis.

Quarantines are to run 10 days from the last contact a person has had with a SARS patient, the outer range of the known incubation period of the illness.

A Toronto hospital is closed to patients and visitors and a school was temporarily closed yesterday. Notices are being sent home to parents in the GTA district. There are all kinds of wars in all kinds of places, and many of us have friends and family on the front line of this one.
Mortality rates are trickling in throughout the world, but morbidity rates aren’t as available.
I have posts on March 16, 18, 19, 22, 24 and 26th regarding this illness. Hit the dates on the calendar in the sidebar, or follow here.
Ontario Ministry of Health Press Release

Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement says declaring the illness outbreak an emergency gives the government the powers it needs to contain the disease as soon as possible.

“We’re taking this very seriously,” he said. “By characterizing it as a health emergency, we are giving ourselves the powers that we need and the information that we need at the most appropriate time to ensure that we can contain this disease as soon as possible.”

Any Toronto bloggers posting on this, feel free to let me know.