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:

  1. Once travellers land in Canada and before they go through customs, they are given a COVID-19 test.
  2. They enter a short quarantine until the result of the test comes through (24 - 48 hours).
  3. If the test is negative, they are allowed to freely enter Canada.
  4. 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.