FLYING BLIND DURING COVID-19
Authorities are willing to let Canadians stay in the dark when fellow travellers become ill after flight. That's a very curious thing
The airline industry is at pains to point out that the risk of COVID infection on a plane is lower than that in an office building, classroom or commuter train, in large part because of the aggressive air filtration and circulation systems on aircraft.
But in-flight transmission is not unknown and the Public Health Agency of Canada posts a list of flights where flyers were later found to have tested positive for COVID-19 (though as airlines are quick to point out, that doesn't mean they contracted it on board).
The curious thing is that nobody seems to think passengers should be alerted if a person sitting close to them becomes sick.
Air Canada said it provides flight manifestos to Canadian health authorities “upon request” within 24 hours but does not contact passengers directly.
The PHAC said follow-ups are done by local health authorities.
Not so, say a number of provincial and municipal health agencies.
British Columbia's Provincial Health Services Authority said that since late March, passengers seated near a case of COVID-19 are no longer notified of their potential exposure. “Instead, that information is posted online,” said Vincent Chou, media relations at PHSA.
Toronto Public Health provided a similar response. It called off its contact tracing efforts, outside of “congregate settings” — long-term care homes, child care centres, schools and hospitals — as a temporary measure in early October. Full contact tracing has yet to resume.
When it comes to flights, Dr. Vinita Dubey, associate medical officer of health, said that TPH will follow up with the infected individual and inform the province, which in turn passes on the information to the PHAC so it can post the exposures on its website. “Travelers are asked to check this website after arriving in Canada,” she said.
Ottawa Public Health said it notifies travellers according to provincial guidelines, which determine that no public health followup is required for those already in quarantine.
That obviously does not cover domestic flights carrying people who later test positive, such as the Westjet flight that landed in Ottawa from Calgary on November 23.
The Ontario guidelines fall back on the COVID app to notify people who have come into contact with a someone who has tested positive. But the federal app has its own shortcomings — it has not been adopted by a number of provinces, including British Columbia and Alberta, and it is under-used in provinces where it is available.
The other surprising thing about the lack of communication between airlines, health authorities and passengers is the sheer number of flights affected — in the past two weeks, 74 domestic flights and 71 international flights were discovered to have carried a person who was, or became, infected.
On three flights on three separate days — Nov. 20, 22 and 23 — Qatar Airlines' flights arrived in Montreal from Doha carrying passengers who subsequently tested positive.
Seven flights have landed in Canada from Cancun in the past two weeks with people who either were, or subsequently became, sick; there were seven from Denver; six from Delhi and five from San Francisco.
Entry into Canada is restricted to citizens and permanent residents, with certain exemptions for family members, international students and temporary foreign workers. Everyone coming into the country from overseas is obliged to quarantine for two weeks.
But for a country that is officially discouraging non-essential travel, the number of infections connected to airline passengers is strangely high.
Passenger volumes on any given day are down 90 per cent on this time last year but there are still plenty of people flying around — and carrying their germs with them.
The Canada Border Services Agency released new information on Tuesday that suggested 986,989 Canadian citizens and permanent residents entered Canada by air since restrictions were first put in place. Last week, 52,877 people arrived, of whom only 36,485 were citizens or permanent residents.
The bottom line is that, if you have taken a flight, check the Public Health Agency of Canada website to see if someone sitting near you was infected.
Passengers need to be proactive because local public health agencies are too swamped to help. That's symptomatic of a test, trace and isolate system in this country that is flying half-blind.