On New Year’s Eve, as he said goodbye to 2019 and cooked dinner at home, Dr. Zain Chagla received a clue about something ominous overseas.
That night, while checking his email, the St. Joseph’s Healthcare infectious disease doctor read a routine update for colleagues in the field around the world.
Near the end of the message was a brief item describing a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China thought to have originated at a seafood market.
“China is known for having novel influenza outbreaks,” said Chagla. “It was one of those things where you think: interesting. Should keep an eye on that.”
At the time Chagla was focused on tracking an Ebola virus threat in Central Africa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and making contingencies in the event a patient showed in Hamilton with the deadly disease.
Twenty-six days after that email, Canada had its first confirmed case of COVID-19.
And today, nearly four months after that email, Chagla wears several hats on the pandemic front line in Hamilton.