B.C.’s provincial health officer says the four Canadians isolating in Victoria after leaving the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship are from B.C. and the Yukon.

The group includes a Vancouver Island resident in their 70s, another person from B.C. in their 50s who currently lives abroad, and a couple from the Yukon in their 70s, Dr. Bonnie Henry said.

The group arrived in Victoria on Sunday evening.

“All four were and continue to be well and have no symptoms. This is reassuring,” Henry said in an update Monday morning.

“But as we talked about yesterday, we are in a very critical phase of the incubation.”

21-day period to begin May 10

Henry said the group was transferred directly from the airport to pre-arranged lodgings, where they will be self-isolating for a minimum of 21 days — with the clock having begun on Sunday, May 10.

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) previously said that the 21-day period began on May 6, when the last known person confirmed to have hantavirus was taken off the cruise ship.

“We’ve been re-looking at that in the face of what we’re seeing particularly with the case who developed symptoms quite quickly in France,” Henry said.

“And so we agreed, and we’ve been talking to the four people who are here that the clock will start yesterday, when they arrived here in Canada.”

She said the 21 days will entail “complete isolation with no contact with anybody,” and that this may be extended to 42 days.

She said the group is receiving daily monitoring including symptom checks, wellness assessments and clear guidance on what to do should their health status change.

“These Canadians have been through a very difficult number of weeks,” Henry said.

“They were tired and I would say exhausted, but very relieved and grateful to be back here in Canada.”

WATCH | Canadians previously aboard MV Hondius to self-isolate in B.C.:

4 Canadians from hantavirus-hit cruise ship fly to B.C.

Four Canadians from a cruise ship with a deadly hantavirus outbreak were flown to B.C. after docking on one of Spain’s Canary Islands. B.C. health officials said all four are asymptomatic as they begin a 21-day monitored isolation period.

On Sunday, Henry said one of the protocols included the B.C. Biocontainment Treatment Centre at Surrey Memorial Hospital.

Asked why the group wasn’t isolating closer to that facility, Henry said it was due to logistics, and that the province had the capacity and ability to better manage their isolation on the island.

She said ambulances were on standby should a patient need to be transferred to Surrey Memorial.

“Surrey [Memorial], as you know, is a very busy hospital. We don’t want to take up extra space if we don’t need to,” she said.

Henry emphasized that none of the travellers had come into contact with the public during their transfer from the airport, and that all health-care workers involved wore personal protective equipment (PPE) at all times.

4 Canadians at relatively low risk, says Henry

Three people have died since the hantavirus outbreak began on the MV Hondius.

Hantavirus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Henry said the four Canadians isolating in Victoria had no known direct contact with the people who fell ill on the ship.

She said everyone on board is globally considered to be a higher-risk contact, but within that context, the four Canadians are considered lower risk because of the location of their cabins on the ship and the activities they were engaged in.

“That is, again, something that is reassuring but doesn’t rule out entirely that somebody may have been exposed,” she said.

One infectious disease doctor in Vancouver says human-to-human transmission of the virus is “very difficult” and requires “hours and hours” of exposure at close quarters.

“Even at that, it doesn’t spread very well,” Dr. Brian Conway, the medical director of the Vancouver Infectious Diseases Centre, told Stephen Quinn on The Early Edition.

“So I think as long as we keep track of the individuals that were on the cruise ship, the risk to the general public is minimal, if not non-existent.”

Henry said the province will be providing further updates, including any changes in the four Canadians’ conditions.

The four are among 10 Canadians who, as of Friday, were identified to have potentially been exposed to the virus. The others include two from Alberta, three from Ontario, and one from Quebec. Some were on board the ship while others may have been exposed to a confirmed case of hantavirus on a flight.

Henry acknowledged that these developments may be “unsettling” to British Columbians in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and wanted to reassure people that the hantavirus is not spread the same way.

“This is a virus that we know … It’s not what we would consider a disease of pandemic potential. It is, however, a very serious illness,” she said.

“So I think of it as a serious and important disease that we need to understand, and we need to understand the risk to these individuals.”