A week after Trump's call with Woodward, Hajdu told the Thunder Bay Newswatch on Feb. 14 that Canada had seen "a stabilization of cases."
"I've talked a lot about how we have the outbreak that is obviously related to a physical illness ... but there's also the outbreak of fear and the pandemic of fear is a very common partner to pandemics or outbreaks of other illnesses," she told the local news outlet.
"We need to remind Canadians that the risk factor for contracting this virus in Canada is a close contact with someone who recently travelled to the region," she added, referring to Asia.
Two months later, there'd be tens of thousands of new cases — many of them generated through community spread by returning travellers from Europe and the U.S.