A student from Western University in London is Ontario’s third case of the novel coronavirus, but caught a mild form and was feeling back to normal within three days, health officials revealed Friday.

The young woman in her 20s arrived from China without symptoms at Toronto’s Pearson Airport Jan. 23 and drove to London, all while wearing a mask because her parents had been sick in Wuhan, which is ground zero for the virus.

Her case was not made public until now because her viral load was so low the initial test taken University Hospital in London the next day came back negative, said Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health.

A diagnosis of the new coronavirus was not made until further testing of her nose and throat swabs at a federal lab in Winnipeg.

“It was just barely positive,” Williams told a hastily arranged news conference at Queen’s Park hours after Sunnybrook hospital in Toronto announced the man who was declared Ontario’s first coronavirus case had been sent home to complete his recovery.

Unlike the first two coronavirus cases of that man and his wife, who flew into Pearson on China Southern Airlines flight CZ311 on Jan. 22, health officials are not contacting passengers who sat within a few rows of the woman on her plane a day later.

She was not showing the symptoms of a cough or fever while in the airplane, meaning she was not contagious, and “went straight into isolation at her home” before symptoms developed the next day, said Dr. Chris Mackie, medical officer of health for Middlesex-London.

“It’s very likely the patient wasn’t contagious even at the height of her illness,” he added, praising the woman for going “above and beyond” in her precautions to protect others.

Officials declined to release the name of her airline and flight number.

“There’s no risk to the other passengers,” said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate medical officer. “We don’t have hard evidence of asymptomatic spread.”

The woman was sent home from hospital after her initial test and, despite feeling better, will remain in self-isolation until she is cleared in two viral tests taken at least 24 hours apart, said Dr. Vanessa Allen, chief of medical microbiology at Public Health Ontario’s laboratory.

Allen added that the latest tests for novel coronavirus are improved from earlier versions used as recently as last week.

Mackie said the woman had no contact with her roommate and has not been on campus at Western since returning from China. She has had contact with an “intimate partner” but they wore masks. Her parents were sick and in hospital in Wuhan “weeks ago” but were never tested for any viruses.

“The system in China is working at capacity,” Mackie added. “Not all the suspect cases will be tested.”

The number of people infected with the new coronavirus in China has risen to more than 11,000, while 259 people have died, Chinese health officials said on Saturday.

Health officials in Hubei province in central China, the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis, said an additional 1,347 new cases had been reported in the province alone, bringing the number of infections there to 7,153.

There are more than 100 cases in other countries, including eight of local person-to-person spread. Canada’s total is now at four, with the three Ontario cases and one in British Columbia. All the Canadian cases are related to people who have returned from China on flights. There has been no person-to-person spread here.

The man released from Sunnybrook on Friday morning improved during his week in care and reached the point where “he no longer required in-patient care,” the hospital said in a statement.

He is now home with his wife, who had a milder case of coronavirus and stayed in self-isolation at their home, where there are no other occupants. The couple is being monitored by Toronto Public Health.

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Canadians in affected areas of China are still waiting for details of an evacuation flight being arranged by the federal government.

In Montreal, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday it could take several days to make arrangements for about 200 Canadians who have asked for help escaping the outbreak.

“We are engaged with Chinese authorities around repatriating Canadians who are in China and concerned for their safety,” he said. “We will have more to say on that in the coming days.”

Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu noted China will not allow people who are ill to travel and warned there will be a “comprehensive screening process” to get on the flight.