Still, preliminary genetic analysis shows that the virus strains isolated from patients in California are identical to those seen in severely ill Mexican patients.

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And in the past week, two groups of geneticists, one at the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the other at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, have succeeded in sequencing the genomes of coronaviruses isolated from patients in Toronto and Asia.

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"If you've got people at your side encouraging you, you have such an advantage over isolated and withdrawn patients who have to do that journey alone, " Schwamm said.

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It also helped that after 1900 TB patients were often isolated in sanatoria and that after 1950 people could be cured.

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Infected patients should be isolated, or grouped together to limit exposures.

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Floodwaters had isolated the hospital, where about 312 patients -- many of them critically ill -- were being treated when Katrina hit.

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Patients are discharged from hospital and can be left isolated with no social care support.

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At the High Court, his lawyer, Clodagh Bradley, argued the incident was isolated and there was no evidence of any risk of harm to patients.

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