Ottawa is still only randomly testing fully vaccinated international travelers on arrival, despite Announced almost six weeks ago that all travelers entering Canada from outside the United States will be required to perform a COVID-19 molecular test shortly upon arrival.

“We have full confidence that this will develop quickly in the next few days,” said Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos at a press conference on November 30th.

At the time, the federal government said it had developed the new test guideline to stop the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant. It suggested that all vaccinated travelers entering from the United States might also face mandatory arrival tests – if the Omicron variant began to rise in the United States.

But more than 30 days later, all fully vaccinated travelers to Canada only need to take an arrival test if they are randomly selected.

In the meantime, the Omicron variant has spread around the world, including the United States, and infects both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. In Canada, the increase has sparked new life Lock and Labor shortage, and is stressful the health system.

Marcela Hart with her husband Kevin and their three year old son Diego. Hart said she was surprised the family wasn’t destined for arrival testing after flying from Mexico to Toronto on Dec. 26. (Submitted by Marcela Hart)

Marcela Hart, of Ottawa, said she was surprised when she and her husband – both fully vaccinated – were not selected for an arrival test after flying from Mexico to Toronto on December 26.

“We were just asked a few questions about where we had been, what we were doing, and off we went,” said Hart, who had traveled to Mexico with her husband and three-year-old son to visit their family.

“We had an unvaccinated child with us. We just assumed we were – almost – a target for a test, ”she said.

Government replies

Despite the announcement in November, Canada’s policies haven’t changed since August 9th when the government ordered all unvaccinated recreational travelers over the age of four to take a COVID-19 test upon arrival and fully vaccinated travelers – including those from the U.S. – take one at random.

The tests are in addition to the All travelers must undergo before departure before leaving for Canada.

The Canadian Public Health Authority (PHAC) neglected the question of why the government is taking so long to test all overseas arrivals outside of the United States and whether all travelers from the United States would also face mandatory arrival tests.

Spokesman André Gagnon said the government had “significantly increased” resources for arrival tests this month until it can now conduct more than 20,000 tests at airports every day.

An average of 45,000 passengers traveled into Canada daily between December 20 and 26, according to the latest data from Canada Border Services Agency.

According to the latest government data, between December 12th and December 18th, 656 fully vaccinated international travelers tested positive after being randomly selected for the arrival test. While the overall positivity rate is low at just under one percent, it has increased compared to the previous week. The government warns that the data is incomplete as some test results have yet to be counted.

Confusion Over Canada’s COVID-19 Travel Rules

Many Canadian travelers have been confused about the federal government’s new rules on COVID-19 testing, while Ottawa says they aren’t that complicated. It made it clear that all passengers coming from overseas destinations outside the US will soon have to undergo mandatory tests upon arrival – a requirement that the airports say is impossible to meet. 1:48

Ideally, all travelers should be tested upon arrival and this rule should have been in place well before Omicron spread across Canada, said Julianne Piper, research fellow and project coordinator at the Pandemics & Borders Research project at Simon Fraser University.

She suspects that the government is struggling to fully implement the arrival tests due to a lack of resources.

“Now we’re at a point where testing and contact tracing capabilities are overwhelmed, even domestically,” said Piper. “We’ll probably see challenges in implementation [arrival testing] after a decision was unfortunately made a little too late to have a significant impact on the Omicron variant in Canada. “

Julianne Piper, research fellow and project coordinator for the Pandemics & Borders research project at Simon Fraser University, says Canada should have introduced full arrival testing before the Omicron variant spread across the country. (SFU)

Earlier this month, the Canadian Airports Council – which represents many of the country’s airports – said CBC News It is simply not feasible to test all incoming passengers in the arrival halls of the largest airports in the country.

“We are all struggling together to understand how to do this so that travelers flow, everyone is safe and these airport traffic jams are avoided,” said Daniel-Robert Gooch, President of the Airports Council.

Gagnon said the government is working closely with airports, airlines and test providers to increase testing capacity in an efficient manner.

CBC News asked Gagnon if the government has abandoned its original plan to test all overseas arrivals outside of the US and is still waiting for an answer.

US travelers exempt from quarantine

Vaccinated travelers, who are randomly selected for the arrival test, must be quarantined while waiting for their test results. However, according to the government website, travelers who are randomly selected for a test from the USA are exempt from the quarantine rule.

PHAC did not address questions about why tested travelers from the US can skip the quarantine at a time when the Omicron variant has spread rapidly across the country. On Monday, the USA set a global record of more than a million new infections with COVID-19.

Piper said travel policies are most effective when they apply to everyone.

“A virus doesn’t differentiate between … someone who is from the United States and a country in another part of the world,” she said. “There is no country that has remained untouched by it.”