As Ottawa looks to bring more Covid tests online throughout the month, some experts and travellers say it’s unclear whether a randomized testing regime for those entering Canada, in place since last summer, is helping to contain spread of the virus amid the emergence of the more contagious Omicron variant.
Julianne Piper, a research fellow and project coordinator with Simon Fraser University’s Pandemic and Borders initiative, said prioritizing travel-related molecular testing (including PCR tests) at ports of entry “may not be the best use of resources, given the strain” on the overall health system, which has seen testing and contact tracing capacities overwhelmed in regions like Ontario.
Piper said she hasn’t travelled internationally since the pandemic given there is no certain way to “eliminate” travel-related risks.
But ditching such efforts “in the medium to longer term” could also be risky once Omicron subsides, as randomized testing helps surveil the virus’ transmission and possibly catch new variants when more emerge, she cautioned.
“In the early months of 2020, there was a lot of leeway for new and emerging evidence in this policy area,” Piper told Parliament Today. “We’ve learned a lot in the last 20 months, and I think the very question of what the randomized testing is trying to achieve points to a lack of clarity and transparency in terms of what the goals and metrics are, and how it’s been implemented.”
