Health Minister Patty Hajdu

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has created a new cabinet committee to deal with the novel coronavirus outbreak, which began in China but now has spread around the world.

Canada's border measures to guard the country against incoming cases of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, will likely become less effective as the virus spreads, the country's chief medical officer Dr. Theresa Tam said on Monday, February 24, 2020.

The evacuees from Wuhan expected to arrive in Canada on Friday, February 7, 2020, face two weeks of isolation, as they are confined to their assigned motel rooms on a Canadian Forces base in southern Ontario, where they will be monitored for signs of the novel coronavirus.