As Canada extends border closure with U.S., PM says we need to ‘ramp up’ infection tracking,
PM says Canada needs to ramp up contact tracing, testing before travel OK’d
OTTAWA— Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Liberal government is trying to create a national framework on COVID-19 testing and contact tracing, adding Canada would have to “massively ramp up” its ability to track new infections before it can reopen borders to non-essential travel.
Trudeau, speaking outside his home at Rideau Cottage, confirmed the U.S. border will remain closed for another 30 days, saying it represents a “source of vulnerability” for Canadians if restrictions were lifted now.
The decision to keep the U.S. border closed to non-essential travel for another 30 days was driven by the “clear desire” of provinces to extend the agreement in place since March 21, which has already been renewed once before.
British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec are the three provinces who’ve been most vocal about their concerns the virus will spread rapidly if non-essential travel were restarted, according to sources who spoke to the Star about the first ministers’ calls.
A mutual agreement allows only essential goods, services and workers to cross the Canada-U.S. border.
Trudeau offered no details about what his government has proposed to the provinces in terms of help or “significant resources” to improve testing and contact tracing.
Trudeau spokesperson Cameron Ahmad said later the prime minister raised the federal proposal in the weekly conversation with premiers last week. He said the federal government recognizes it is an area of provincial responsibility and is “not proposing to change that.”
Instead, the offer was to support provinces in a range of areas by providing additional lab capacity, helping to deal with the volumes of work, technology-sharing or providing other equipment or tools, he suggested. “It was broadly well received,” he said.
Asked to elaborate what the federal government was proposing, Dr. Howard Njoo, deputy health officer, said more guidance on who should be tested at this stage in the epidemic may soon be issued by the federal health authority, but he downplayed the need for a new framework specifically on contact tracing.
Trudeau would not say when it would be possible to reopen the American border, saying, “The decisions that we’re taking are very much made week to week in this crisis.”
But Trudeau was clear that the U.S. — which now has 1.5 million cases of COVID-19, or nearly 31 per cent of all global infections — represents a risk for Canadians.
Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said discussions around reopening the border involve many considerations, including not just “technical health” considerations, but also the socioeconomic impacts of the restrictions, but, whenever it reopens, “the mandatory 14 days’ quarantining of people who come in remains a cornerstone as we go forward.”
Ottawa’s latest epidemiological report dated May 18 showed no new cases had been reported in six jurisdictions within the past seven days. And no new deaths were reported in 10 jurisdictions within the past 24 hours, but those numbers may also be due to a lag in provincial test results and reporting.
Tam said Canada is testing an average of 26,000 to 28,000 people a day, well below the 60,000-a-day level she previously said should be done.
That works out to Canada having tested slightly more than 35,000 people per one million of population, which, according to Worldometer’s tracking, puts Canada 40th in the world.
Prof. Susan Bondy, an associate professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, said a spike in cases imported from the U.S. “is a valid fear,” especially given the workload involved in contact tracing at the moment.
“There is still a lot of burden in processing the new cases each day in specific cities and health units and it is a lot of clinical activity happening, so increasing the number of new cases imported could allow things to get out of control again and lead to a more restrictive lockdown,” Bondy said in an interview.
Trudeau would not say when he thinks it might be possible to reopen the American border or to allow other non-essential international arrivals, saying, “The decisions that we’re taking are very much made week to week in this crisis.”
Tam reported Tuesday that Canada has 78,499 cases of COVID-19, with 5,857 deaths from the disease, or 19th in terms of deaths per 1 million population.