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OTTAWA — Infectious disease experts disagree with the usefulness of travelers arriving in Canada randomly because of COVID-19, as the federal government has relaunched its mandatory program.
The government paused randomly at airports in June because long customs delays wreaked havoc at Canadian airports, but revived the program Tuesday at four major airports: Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Montreal.
This time random trials continued for vaccinated travelers at the land border.
Randomly chosen air travelers at those 4 airports will now have to show up at off-site locations to get tested for COVID-19 or pick up a swab kit.
“The resumption of mandatory outdoor random testing at airports will allow the Government of Canada to maintain its ability to temporarily respond to new fear variants or changes in the epidemiological situation, while helping to alleviate congestion issues at airports,” the Public Security ministers said. on a joint Wednesday.
The Public Health Agency of Canada may simply not provide information Wednesday about the off-site testing charge to the latest edition of the program.
The PHAC is charged according to the test, and the style has been replaced since the tests were moved out of airports, the firm said in a statement.
A comparative investigation is expected in a few months, once the invoices have been received.
In December, the government awarded contracts worth up to $631 million for testing and other checks and prices only rose from there.
Dr. Theresa Tam, director of public health, randomly called an “early warning system” for new variants of COVID-19 as they enter Canada.
The government is publishing the knowledge so that the public can see which variants and subvariants are gaining traction among travelers entering the country.
About one in 15 people who flew to Canada were randomly selected or needed a check because they were not vaccinated between April and June, according to PHAC data.
Of those who were fully vaccinated, about 3. 2% tested positive.
Infectious disease doctor Dr. Zain Chagla says there are more effective tactics for monitoring variants
“There are a lot of other tactics to get this data, necessarily prices and hassles for travelers,” he said in an interview.
“The additional expenditure of millions of dollars on testing at airports and land borders does not pay for the investment we need in terms of tracking variants entering Canada. “
At the beginning of the pandemic, the government assembled a team of experts to influence the optimal use of COVID-19 testing, adding long-term care centers, people’s homes, and at the border.
The organization of 12 specialists in fitness policy and infectious diseases has met since April 2021.
In its border report released the following May, the panel indicated that the government continues to monitor the troubling variants. This is especially important when variants turn out to be more resistant to vaccines, Mavens said.
“This assessment will provide a surveillance tool to monitor new or emerging variants of fear. Additional short-term measures may be needed as new emerging variants of fear become known in Canada or abroad,” the report says.
But they also warned that Canadians are more likely to comply with regulations if they create unreasonable delays.
Chagla suggests that the government sequence airport wastewater to look for new ramifications of the coronavirus, which has proven to be a useful way to monitor the spread in communities.
The program makes even less sense at the land border, he said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes information on variants of fear in the United States, he said, and Canada doesn’t want to spend money to double those efforts. , especially with regard to other people in the border villages crossing the two countries.
“Why are we recreating at the expense of travelers?” said Chagla.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 20, 2022.
Laura Osman, the Canadian press
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