Airport tests should be shifted to communities where they are needed most
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Canada’s two main airlines and its biggest airport are calling on the Canadian government to end mandatory COVID-19 testing at airports and shift those resources to communities where they are needed most.
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“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,” said the open letter from the chief medial officers of Air Canada, WestJet and Toronto Pearson International Airport.
Last month the government began ramping up testing of fully vaccinated travellers amid the outbreak of the COVID-19 variant Omicron. The CBC reports that it now has the capacity to test more than 20,000 arrivals daily.
The government pays for these tests, which range from $143 to $188, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
The letter says that in the most recent week of reported data, more than 123,000 tests were taken at Canada’s airports with an average positivity rate of 3 per cent. The positivity rate in communities is running at 30 per cent and the number of cases could be higher because of the lack of tests, it said.
