Three people who recently returned from travel outside of Canada have been diagnosed with the 2019 novel coronavirus in the Kingston area.

Dr. Kieran Moore, the medical officer of health for Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Public Health, said on Tuesday that none of them have been hospitalized, all are self-isolating, and all are being monitored by public health.

The infected individuals are a 48-year-old man and two women, 44 and 62. All of them were infected while travelling to either Spain, Barbados or the United Kingdom.

The individual who had returned to Barbados is a Lennox and Addington County General Hospital staff member in Napanee.

“Patients in the hospital were not in contact with this staff member and are not considered to be at risk,” a news release from public health said.

The two others went to the COVID-19 Assessment Centre located at Hotel Dieu Hospital, where they were diagnosed. Moore said that the third was diagnosed at a different local hospital.

He said the patients have a mild fever, cough and some have difficulty breathing.

“To protect the health of the public, and to prevent community spread, KFL&A is investigating and following up with close contacts of these individuals,” Moore said.

Once diagnosed, a patient must remain in quarantine for 14 days, and anyone who came in contact with them must self-isolate for the same amount of time. The three patients all have caretakers who are also quarantined. Moore said public health will be reaching out to them to ensure they do.

Moore said the three infected people developed symptoms prior to boarding their flights home. He said they now have to reach out to Public Health Ontario, which works with Public Health Canada to notify other passengers on the flights.

“We have the exact dates (of when they returned to Kingston) and we’re working with those time frames to notify anyone at risk,” Moore said.

Moore did not specify when they arrived home, and also did not say where in the city the residents would have been or shopped.

“With a couple of them, we know there hasn’t been any significant contact in the community,” Moore said. “We’ve had good conversations with these individuals this morning. We are going to maintain those conversations to see who we have to further quarantine in the community, but I think the risk at present is very low that they’ve had any significant contact.”

COVID-19 has swept North America in the past month, and over this past weekend, the number of cases in Ontario alone has doubled. There have been many closures, cancellations and postponements as a result. Residents are encouraged to practise social distancing as much as possible. Officials have encouraged employers to send their workforce home and/or to enable them to work from home.

On Tuesday, both Ontario and Alberta declared a state of emergency.

“Given the spread of this virus globally, and now locally, over the past few weeks, a case in KFL&A was anticipated and pre-emptive measures were in place for exactly this situation,” Moore said. “In this case, the health-care system worked as intended, and through our co-ordinated efforts with our partners, the risk to individuals in KFL&A remains low.”

A list of new cases across Ontario can be found on the Ministry of Health’s 2019 Novel Coronavirus webpage.

More information about what is happening in Kingston can be found here.