International arrivals face stricter airport screening
International travellers arriving in Alberta will now face heightened screening as the province aims to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said Wednesday that international travel played a key role in the spread of the novel coronavirus in Alberta, an outbreak that has led to 6,735 confirmed cases and 128 deaths since it was first detected early March.
To prevent the introduction of more cases, Kenney says travellers arriving to airports in Calgary or Edmonton from abroad will have their temperature checked using an infrared camera.
They also must provide a detailed plan on how they will self-isolate for 14 days and will receive a followup phone call no more than three days after their arrival to ensure they are following the plan. The plan must detail how they will get to their self-isolation location, how they will get food and prescriptions, and who will support them during the isolation period.
Those who don’t have support will be provided with hotel accommodations. The new restrictions come into effect immediately and is in addition to customs screening by the Canada Border Services Agency.
“In almost everywhere that the virus took hold, the initial cases involved international travellers,” Kenney said. “Given that airports and border crossings remain a high-risk vector for transmission and at the same time a crucial part of the infrastructure we need to get our economy moving, we need to do more, especially as we move toward relaunch.”
Though international arrivals to Alberta have slowed dramatically since the start of the pandemic, Kenney said there are still about 400 people who arrive at Alberta’s airports from out of the country, mainly at the Calgary International Airport. In Canada, only four airports remain open to international travel, with Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal accepting flights in addition to Calgary.
In two weeks, a similar procedure will be introduced at the United States land border crossing with Alberta at Coutts, just north of Montana. Kenney said about 90 per cent of land border arrivals come through that port of entry. There currently are no considerations for screenings at provincial borders, the premier said.
The border between Canada and the United States remains closed to all non-essential travel until at least June 21 after the U.S. agreed to Canada’s request to extend the mutual ban on crossings for another month.
Restrictions on non-essential travel for Albertans likely won’t be lifted until Phase 3 of the province’s relaunch plan, Kenney said, with no date yet earmarked for that stage.
“When that does come, however, we can be confident that actions like these which we are announcing today will help keep Albertans safe from new infections from international travel,” he said.
Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said international travel played a major role in Alberta’s outbreak and that cases linked to international travel continue to emerge.
“The vast majority of our cases in the first several weeks of our pandemic here in Alberta were imported cases from international travel from all over the world,” Hinshaw said.
“The country that we have the most cases originating from is the United States, so we did see many, many cases coming into Alberta from the U.S.”
In addition to the passenger screening, Kenney said sanitation and physical distancing measures are being introduced at international arrival terminals at Alberta’s airports.
WEDNESDAY SEES ONE DEATH, 19 NEW CASES; CANADA’S TOP DOCTOR CALLS FOR MASK USE
Alberta reported only 19 new
COVID-19 cases Wednesday, the lowest number recorded since March 16.
The new cases came from just more than 2,600 tests, a 0.7 per cent positive rate. Alberta has the capacity to test up to 7,000 people per day.
There are now 6,735 confirmed coronavirus cases in Alberta, with 5,637 recovered and 970 cases still active.
Wednesday marks the first time that the number of active COVID-19 cases in the province dropped below 1,000 since April 16.
One new death was reported Wednesday, a man in his 70s from Calgary’s Extendicare Hillcrest long-term care home.
However, Alberta’s death toll from the virus stayed static at 128, as one previously reported death — also at Extendicare Hillcrest — was determined not to be related to COVID-19. The 128 deaths include 95 continuing-care facility residents and 92 people from the Alberta Health Services Calgary zone.
There are currently 58 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, seven of whom are in intensive-care units, decreases in both metrics from Tuesday.
Also Wednesday, Canada’s chief public health officer Theresa Tam recommended Canadians wear non-medical face masks in public when they aren’t sure if they will be able to maintain distance from one another.
“This will help us reopen and add another layer to how you go out safely,” Tam said Wednesday in her daily briefing.
Tam added that wearing face masks may become a standard part of public-health responses to future respiratory outbreaks.