At least one in 12 travelers got off a plane in Canada infected with COVID-19 in the first week of 2022. The picture of the positivity rate of incoming tests of vaccinated air travelers continues to darken as federal data for January is released.
At least 8.27% of the 109,290 fully vaccinated air passengers who were required to take a second PCR test upon arrival at the airport between Jan. 2 and Jan. 8 carried the virus, according to summary data updated by the federal government. Tuesday. This, even if each of them had to have in hand a first negative molecular test to be able to board, in addition to showing proof of vaccination.
This proportion could in fact be higher, since federal data counts new positive cases almost a month after the date of the test. Thus, the federal government now calculates that 5.44% of the tests carried out at airports during the week after Christmas came back positive. Friday, as reported The duty, the summary data instead indicated a positivity rate of 4.93% for this last week of 2021.
A rate that justifies the second test
The Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos, justified Tuesday the maintenance of the second PCR test imposed on the arrival of travelers by the very high rate of them who bring the virus with them. He even indicated on the microphone of the morning show of Radio-Canada in Quebec that the rate of positivity of these tests represents the variable which determines if the rules at the borders must be modified.
“The positivity rates on arrival at airports and at the land border, we are watching that carefully. These rates continue to grow. Until these rates stabilize and begin to decline, there will be no change in border policies,” he told host Claude Bernatchez.
Last week, big players in the industry like Air Canada and WestJet asked the Trudeau government to end the requirement for the second PCR test on arrival, on the pretext that these tests would be better used elsewhere. To these criticisms, Minister Duclos indicated that the federal government does not use the same resources as the provinces, since it uses private companies to test travelers, a service that is also located at Canada’s entry points. .
Other countries around the world, such as France or the United States, only require a rapid antigen test dated less than 24 hours before the arrival of fully vaccinated travelers entering their territory.
For travelers entering the country by land, Canada reports a drop in the positivity rate for fully vaccinated travelers from 15.77% to 12.74% between the week of December 26 and the week of January 2. However, this rate is calculated from a much smaller sample, namely from randomly selected travellers.