Canada has announced a pilot program in the province of Alberta to replace mandatory 14 day quarantine for international arrivals with a 2 step testing process.
The program is expected to start on 2 November and has been welcomed by Air Canada and Westjet as a way forward to restart international travel.
Could a similar process be used in Australia?
The details of the new Canadian testing are:
- Once travellers land in Canada and before they go through customs, they are given a COVID-19 test.
- They enter a short quarantine until the result of the test comes through (24 - 48 hours).
- If the test is negative, they are allowed to freely enter Canada.
- On day 6 or 7 they must have another COVID-19 test at a community pharmacy.
A voluntary study conducted by McMaster HealthLabs, Toronto Airports and Air Canada of 13,000 returning international travellers found that more than 99% of them tested negative for COVID-19. Of the less than 1% that tested positive more than 80% were detected in the initial test and the remaining 20% were detected in the day 7 test.
Roughly speaking, that means out of the 13,000 travellers there were up to 130 that were detected with COVID-19. Of those 130, up to 26 were not detected until day 7. Under the new rules, those 26 will be in the community for 5 days.
The data from this test was used by the government when designing the new 2 step testing process.
Now may be a good time to mention that Canada added 2584 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday - which is close to the record of 2,786 set on Thursday 17/Oct. Compared to those rates, the 26 cases of COVID-19 introduced by international arrivals may seem a small price to pay to get 13,000 international visitors (and presumably a similar number of departures).
Could this 2 Step Testing Process be used in Australia?
The current weekly cap on international arrivals is 6,000. Exact figures on how many of those arrivals have COVID-19 are difficult to calculate, but using the Canadian study figures of 1%, we can estimate that roughly 60 people arrive into Australia a week that are infected.
If Australia shifted to a 2 step testing process, then 48 would be detected once they arrived and would go into 14 day quarantine. 12 people a week would be allowed to go into the community where they would not be detected until 4-5 days later.
From there, it seems likely there would be a spike in community transmission, which is what Australia has worked hard to eradicate (and in some states has been successful).
So Australia looks extremely unlikely to follow Canada. A halfway measure that may be more likely is something the United Kingdom is looking at - where you have a COVID-19 test on arrival and then another on day 5. If both tests are negative, then you can leave quarantine early.
Garth Adams
Garth's favourite travel experience was driving USA coast to coast in a 70s station wagon.
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