As March break looms, is it time to lift COVID-19 testing requirements to board a plane?
Canadians who assume they contracted COVID-19 in recent weeks but don't have a positive PCR test to prove it may find themselves in a bind if they plan on travelling anytime soon.
Nick Rutherford's family booked a March trip to Mexico last fall. By mid-January, he and his wife and two children caught and recovered from COVID, but were unable to access PCR tests due to overwhelming demand and new testing restrictions amid the Omicron wave.
As far as the record books go, we never had COVID," Rutherford said, which was a concern as PCR tests can deliver positive results for up to three months after recovery.
Because of Canada's testing requirements for air travel, Rutherford and his family decided to purchase PCR tests at a private clinic ahead of their trip to make sure they wouldn't be stranded in Mexico with a positive result.
The testing rules present a challenge for anyone who recently recovered from COVID, but was unable to access PCR tests after the Ontario government announced restrictions at the end of December, prioritizing tests for high-risk individuals and health-care workers.
With March break approaching, travel agencies say bookings are increasing for departures in February and March. Richard Vanderlubbe, president of Tripcentral.ca, says bookings for the next few weeks are around four times higher than mid-December when the travel agency witnessed a wave of cancellations and a steep drop in bookings during a surge in cases linked to the Omicron variant.
But as the Omicron wave begins to ease, some are asking if it's time to relax COVID-19 testing requirements to board a plane.
Canadians can barely get a test in their own jurisdiction, so why are we testing people as they get on or off a plane or cross the border?" says Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease physician and associate professor at McMaster University.
It's time to start sunsetting testing for travel," Chagla said. Most are now protected by the vaccine and it's not that much of a risk considering how easily Omicron can be caught locally."
Around 1.5 million to 4 million people in Ontario have been infected by the virus since Dec. 1, according to recent data from the Ontario Science Table. But only 10 per cent of those infected over recent weeks were able to get PCR tests to confirm whether they contracted the illness, says Chagla.
Currently, the federal government permits citizens to fly back to Canada without retesting only if they can provide proof they received a positive COVID test taken 11 to 180 days before returning - or if they produce a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours before boarding an incoming flight.
But those who recovered from COVID and were unable to get a registered test run the risk of being stuck abroad if they wish to travel as tests may deliver positive results long after an individual is contagious. If a traveller tests positive abroad, they must wait at least 11 days before travelling to Canada.
When asked whether the government plans to review testing regulations for air travellers, the Public Health Agency of Canada said border testing remains a critical part of Canada's COVID-19 surveillance strategy."
In an email, PHAC spokesperson Tammy Jarbeau said the government is working with provinces to review next steps regarding testing" but did not specify when.
Meanwhile, the government said it continues to recommend that people avoid all non-essential travel outside of Canada, regardless of vaccination status" - an advisory that was reinstated on Dec. 15.
Canada does not accept rapid antigen tests as pre-entry COVID tests. But Chagla argues if testing continues to be a requirement, a rapid test ought to be sufficient for travel.
The hyper-sensitive gold-standard PCR test looks for genetic pieces of the virus and can detect whether an individual has COVID with high certainty, but does not indicate whether the virus is no longer contagious, explained Chagla. On the other hand, rapid antigen tests look for proteins that make up part of the virus and are expressed in high quantities if the virus is actively replicating. For this reason, a rapid test may not detect the virus in an individual with a low viral load.
It's probably better to be using a rapid test at the airport if you're screening for people who are actively infectious as compared to using PCR tests, which are costly, may not be available in certain places, need to be sent to labs and have validation issues," Chagla said.
Based on government data detailing exposure history for nearly 2 million COVID cases, only 0.8 per cent involved people who travelled outside of Canada. More than 3 million COVID cases have been recorded in Canada since the beginning of the pandemic.
In January, Canada's main airlines Air Canada and WestJet, along with Toronto's Pearson International Airport, called on the government to drop mandatory testing at airports for vaccinated travellers and allocate scarce resources to communities most in need. WestJet on Monday repeated calls to end arrival testing.
PHAC said that as of Dec. 21, the government increased its capacity to test 26,000 travellers daily upon arrival.
The federal government says travellers arriving from countries other than the U.S. will likely" be asked to complete an arrival test by a border officer and must quarantine while waiting for results. However, randomly tested travellers arriving from the U.S. can skip quarantine while awaiting results. PHAC did not provide an explanation for the differences, even though the U.S. reported the highest daily total of COVID infections for any country globally in January, recording 1.35 million cases in one day.
Chagla maintains that the risk of travelling across borders is evening out because of how widespread COVID and Omicron are both locally and globally.
I would argue there are places in Ontario that are higher risk, going to a Raptors basketball game, going to a concert ... If we get to a place where these are opening I don't understand why we would restrict travel," Chagla said.
The risk of infection is going to be there in our community. Omicron is here it's not going to disappear."
Ghada Alsharif is a Toronto-based staff reporter for the Star. Reach Ghada via email: galsharif@torstar.ca