Calls to end the need for PCR testing at the border.
The Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable — an industry group made up of representatives from airports, airlines, hotels, and chambers of commerce across the country — says it’s unnecessary and a non-science-based obstacle to international travel.
Some Canadian doctors agree.
Dr. Dominik Mertz, Director of Infectious Diseases at McMaster University, says international travel accounts for less than one per cent of all cases in Canada.
“When you look at what’s happening around us with community transmission, it’s extremely unlikely that the travellers coming potentially positive will have any sizeable effect on transmission,” says Dr. Mertz.
The doctors add Canada’s border restrictions are out of step with other countries that have lifted their testing requirements.
Dr. Zain Chagla, an Infectious Diseases Physician, says even quarantines measures are inconsistent, noting travellers entering Canada have the potential of isolating for fourteen days, when the norm in other incidents it is five days.
“Even if you are COVID-19 infectious, you know the worst, the most infectious at the airport, you’ve already passed that period of quarantine by the time you have your test results back. So you’re not even a threat to anyone anymore,” says Dr. Chagla.
Dr. Chagla says there is also a huge cost to border testing, money that could be used for other purposes.
The doctors also believe the current testing isn’t stopping COVID or its variants from entering the country, noting transmission from travel is cause for just one per cent of all COVID cases in Canada.
The tourism industry would like to see testing come to an end.
Co-chair Beth Potter says the industry is already suffering from restrictions.
“Our industry is half of what it was in 2019, and the forecasting that I’m looking at is we don’t get back to where we were in 2019 until the end of 2026,” says Potter.
The Roundtable adds the current testing isn’t stopping COVID or its variants from entering the country, noting transmission from travel is cause for just one per cent of all cases.
“Travel is no more risky than other activities, and there is no scientific reason to single it out,” says Dr. Chagla. “When first put in place, Canada’s travel rules were designed to keep COVID-19 out of the country. Now that the virus is here and community spread is responsible for approximately 99 per cent of all infections, the rules governing travel are obsolete.
