Chief Medical Officers of Health for Air Canada, Toronto
Pearson, and WestJet call on Governments to shift PCR testing from
airports to communities
TORONTO, Jan. 17, 2022 /CNW/ - Dear Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos, P.C., Minister of Health; Dr.
Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health
Officer of Canada; Hon.
Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier of
Ontario and Minister of Health;
and Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health:
Over the last two months, Omicron has quickly become the
predominant variant of COVID-19. As it spreads throughout our
communities, we need to ensure Canada's limited testing resources are being
used where Canadians need them most—to support our communities,
schools, hospitals and long-term care homes.
As the government has ramped up testing at airports for
international arrivals, we have seen frontline workers struggle to
get PCR tests and lab processing capacity decrease significantly.
There is a growing discrepancy between resources allocated to
asymptomatic travellers and to those who need it most. In the most
recent week of reported data, over 123,000 PCR tests were conducted
at Canada's airports with an
average positivity rate of 3 per cent. Meanwhile, the positivity
rate in our communities is now approximately 30 per cent and could
be higher due to the under-reporting of positivity from a lack of
tests.
A recent study prepared for the Manchester Airports Group found
that travel testing at best delayed the peak of cases by no more
than 5 days, and made total case counts only 3 per cent lower. This
was because Omicron was prevalent in the communities long before it
was detected as a variant of concern in South Africa. Indeed, here in Canada as well, we have learned that Omicron
was present and circulating in our communities long before the
first official case was declared in Canada.
As every person travelling to Canada must take a PCR test prior to getting
on a plane inbound to Canada and
must be fully vaccinated, there is no good public health rationale
for a second test upon arrival. We know that the primary concern
for Omicron is in the community. By extension, the primary need for
testing is in our community; not at our airports. Now is the time
to act. We call on the Government of Canada to work with Ontario to implement the following measures
immediately to support our healthcare system and our
communities:
- Remove mandatory arrivals testing from airports and shift these
scarce resources to our schools, community and healthcare
system.
- Revert to surveillance arrival testing of international air
passengers.
- Require mandatory isolation for persons arriving from an
international location if they are exhibiting symptoms or test
positive on a surveillance test. Travellers who are asymptomatic
after receiving their negative pre-departure test before travel to
Canada should not be required to
isolate.
Collectively, our organizations have worked hard to keep travel
safe, and we have achieved a positivity rate that is ten times less
than community spread. Now is the time to shift testing resources
to where they're needed most. Removing arrivals PCR testing from
Toronto Pearson airport alone would free up 8,000 tests a day for
the GTA, which will help keep our most vulnerable—those in
long-term care, hospitals and our children attending
school—safe.
Now is the time to put scarce testing resources where Canadians
need them most: in our communities and not in our airports.
Dr. Jim
Chung
Chief Medical Officer
– Air Canada
|
Dr. Edward
Wasser
Chief Medical Officer
– Toronto Pearson
|
Dr. Tammy
McKnight
Chief Medical Officer
- WestJet Airlines
|
SOURCE Air Canada