International travel.
Kelley Lee, the Canada Research Chair in global health governance at Simon Fraser University, said stricter travel restrictions between provinces, but also internationally, need to be considered.
Lee is the co-author of a study on the effectiveness of travel restrictions at containing COVID-19.
„What we know is that COVID and travel are intimately connected.… The less that people travel locally, nationally and internationally, the less the virus and variants are spread about.”
Lee said Canada’s border is particularly porous, calling the rules around international travel a „Swiss-cheese policy” because it has so many loopholes. For example, she said, many non-essential travellers arrive in Canada by land travel to avoid hotel quarantine, which is also far shorter than other regions like Hong Kong, where it is 21 days.
„Since we’ve had such a loose international border policy, the provinces are left to deal with it. And then communities are left to deal with it. You’re making your choices about where the battlefront is. That means you’re the foot soldier when you step outside your door then.”
France suspended all flights from Brazil this week. While it might be difficult for Canada to designate specific countries as hot spots with the virus circulating globally, Lee said she would like the federal government to introduce „measures to screen, test and quarantine all travellers into Canada regardless of where they are arriving from and to cover land, air and sea.”
Last month, the federal government announced that anyone who had been in Brazil in the two weeks before coming to Canada „will be subject to enhanced screening measures.” However in a statement to CBC on Thursday, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) confirmed these enhanced screening measures for travellers from Brazil have been dropped.
„Given that the P.1 variant is no longer limited to Brazil and is found in a range of countries, including Canada, and that it is not clear that screening for incoming travellers who have been in Brazil was adding operational value given the significantly enhanced testing measures for all incoming travellers, PHAC requested that Canada Border Services Agency no longer question incoming travellers from Brazil.”
