First person to be found positive for COVID-19, now fully recovered

B.C.'s medical health officer, Doctor Bonnie Henry, says the first person in the province who developed a case of the new coronavirus after returning from a trip to China earlier this year is now fully recovered and out of isolation.

Five cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in this province since the outbreak began late last year in China and Henry says four of the five other sufferers are also likely to be declared free of the disease when tests are expected to come back negative later this week.

She says B.C.'s most recent case a woman identified in the Interior Health region on Friday remains in isolation but is doing well.

Henry says public health officials have spoken with all the close contacts of the five B.C. identified cases, all are being followed and none is showing symptoms of the respiratory virus that has sickened more than 70-thousand people, most of them in mainland China and caused more than 18-hundred deaths.