Bankers Hall office scrubbed down after swine flu link
An office area in the Bankers Hall complex in downtown Calgary is undergoing extra sanitization because the son of an employee in the building had a confirmed case of swine flu, according to the property manager.
An email circulated by Brookfield Properties on Tuesday advised people in the complex that the person affected contracted the virus while in Mexico. A spokeswoman told CBC News on Wednesday that the patient is the adult son of someone who works in Bankers Hall.
"This employee has no symptoms but has been sent home by the employer as a precaution, until further notice. Janitorial staff will be conducting extra sanitizing of this employee's work area, floor, and washrooms this evening — again as a precaution only," said the email from Shona Waddell, manager of property and tenant services.
In an update Wednesday, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Dr. André Corriveau, said of the province's two confirmed cases announced the day before, one is a young man, and the other is an infant. Without specifying, he said one case is in Calgary and the other in northern Alberta.
Corriveau said no new cases have surfaced in Alberta.
Premier advises calm
Public health officials are advising basic sanitary precautions including avoiding contact with people who are sick, washing hands frequently and covering the mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing.
Symptoms of the swine flu include those similar to seasonal influenza, such as headache, chills and cough followed by fever, loss of appetite, muscle aches and fatigue, runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes and throat irritation.
'I'd just ask everybody, you know, calm down because this is a very good topic to get headlines through emotion and most of that emotion is fear.' —Premier Ed Stelmach
Tom Sampson, the head of Calgary's emergency response program, said there's no question there will be more swine flu cases in the city, but as long as the symptoms are mild and people recover, there's no cause for alarm.
"In the last six days, we've lost way more people from motor vehicle collisions than we have from this illness," said Sampson, speaking to city council's community and protective services committee on Wednesday.
"I don't want to play it down and I don't want to pretend that we're not taking it seriously, we are, but we have a very minor strain at this point in time and we're not seeing the kind of dissemination across the province."
Premier Ed Stelmach also asked Albertans to stay calm and pointed out on Wednesday that the province's two confirmed cases are mild.
"I'd just ask everybody, you know, calm down because this is a very good topic to get headlines through emotion and most of that emotion is fear. So we are following very closely the advice of the medical officer of health, and whatever resources he needs will be provided," he said on an audio file posted to the premier's website.