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Wake up, Canada.

That’s the unofficial word from frontline health-care workers as increasingly dire news about the Wuhan coronavirus comes out.

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The 2019-novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) from Wuhan in China’s Hubei Province was first reported at the end of December.

Since then, 198 cases have been reported in Wuhan, with three deaths in that city; there are several cases now being reported in Beijing and Shanghai and in Guangdong, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. Health care workers in China are among the affected.

Thailand, South Korea and Japan have also reported cases of the illness, which is part of the same family of coronaviruses as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed 800 people globally during 2002-03. SARS also began in China, where officials initially tried to conceal the severity of the situation.

Symptoms of the coronavirus that originated in Wuhan include fever and difficulty in breathing.