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Quebec has reported its first case of the coronavirus epidemic that has been sweeping the globe.

During a press briefing on Thursday evening, Quebec’s health minister announced that a woman who returned from Iran on Monday went to a clinic later that day, experiencing mild symptoms of what the public health department presumes is COVID-19, the illness caused by a new strain of the ubiquitous coronavirus.

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The news does not come as a surprise to scientists and physicians like Dr. Donald C. Vinh, an infectious disease specialist at the McGill University Health Centre. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it is already in Quebec,” he said in an interview on Wednesday. “We are a global village. If you look at the direction of travel across the Earth. It is not surprising that COVID-19 is coming to Quebec. This is what coronaviruses do.”

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause illnesses of the respiratory tract ranging from the common cold to such serious conditions as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). They are named for the spikes that protrude from their membranes, which resemble the sun’s corona, and can infect both animals and people.