(Bloomberg) -- The first death in Canada from Covid-19 has been reported in the province of British Columbia.
The patient who died was a resident of Lynn Valley Care Centre in North Vancouver, according to the province's health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry.
There are now 32 people in British Columbia who have been infected with the virus, B.C.'s health minister Adrian Dix said during a joint news conference with Henry. Of those, 16 had some contact with Iran, five with China, and several are connected with the Lynn Valley facility where there are “significant issues,” Dix said.
“Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family and loved ones, and also of course to the staff who provided him care and to his home at the Lynn Valley care center,” Henry said.
The national tally for confirmed cases in Canada is now 69, according to the federal government.
In Ontario, a woman in her 60s who returned to Canada from France, and a man in his 60s who had been in Washington, D.C., tested positive for COVID-19.
“All the cases of Covid-19 to date are travel-related and recovering in isolation at home with support from public health officials. As soon as these cases were identified last night, we took immediate action to protect the public,” Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, said in a statement over the weekend.
Canadian stocks, along with global markets, have been roiled with virus fears. The breakdown of talks between OPEC and Russia, which sent Brent crude prices tumbling by almost one third, is expected to exacerbate the hit for equities given the importance of energy and other natural resources to the country's economy. The fall in oil has also hit the Canadian dollar.
--With assistance from Divya Balji and Doug Alexander.
To contact the reporter on this story: Danielle Bochove in Toronto at dbochove1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Luzi Ann Javier at ljavier@bloomberg.net, ;Derek Decloet at ddecloet@bloomberg.net, Jacqueline Thorpe, Stephen Wicary
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