Vancouver Sun

Premier flies solo to beef up quarantine rules at airport

- VAUGHN PALMER vpalmer@postmedia.com twitter.com/VaughnPalm­er

The provincial government is taking matters into its own hands to ensure that British Columbians returning from internatio­nal destinatio­ns isolate themselves at home or head straight into quarantine for two weeks.

Premier John Horgan announced the provincial­ly initiated measures Wednesday, emphasizin­g that the moves — that take effect Friday — should not be interprete­d as criticism of federal oversight of the country’s entry points.

Rather, it was a case of Ottawa not being ready to move until next week and the province not being willing to wait through the long weekend for another round of airport arrivals and border crossings.

“This is a plan that has been agreed to by the federal government. They will be joining us next week, comprehens­ively. But they are not quite ready yet,” said Horgan.

“And I don’t make that as a criticism. I just say that we are ready to go. We have been for some time. We have more resources on the ground in B.C., obviously, than the federal government does.”

Horgan’s caveat not withstandi­ng, many of the provincial moves directly address matters that Health Minister Adrian Dix brought up last week.

Dix raised concerns about people arriving at airports from overseas and not going straight into isolation. He said there needed to be a stronger presence at arrivals to make it clear there were to be no exceptions to the rule.

Where returnees did not have a workable plan for isolating at home, he said there needed to be facilities where they could be safely quarantine­d for 14 days.

Dix said all of that starting last Wednesday.

Not until Sunday did Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly acknowledg­e the provincial concern. Even then he downplayed it, claiming that most of the returns had already happened.

But B.C. remained concerned that lack of proper screening of returning Canadians could undo the work done here to rein in the spread of the outbreak. Hence Horgan’s announceme­nt Wednesday.

“So when people arrive at the Vancouver Internatio­nal Airport, they will be required to have a self-isolation plan,” said the premier.

“This self-isolation plan is not just a suggestion. It is a directive from the public health office. It also is consistent with the Quarantine Act that has been put in place by the federal government. And it is mandatory for those coming back to B.C. to have a plan.”

For those who don’t have a plausible plan, Horgan said the government will have a place for them to go “until we figure it out — and if you don’t have it figured out, you’ll stay there for 14 days.”

Mindful that some of those returning from overseas might be travelling alone or have English as a second language, there will be staff and translator­s at the airport to assist with the forms.

“They will be met by B.C. officials, they will be met by federal officials, and they will be required to explain in detail, with forms that will be provided on flights — forms that are also available on the web — to ensure that these legal documents are completed upon arrival, and that a plan has been put in place,” said the premier.

Also effective Friday, all internatio­nal arrivals into B.C. will be consolidat­ed at YVR, addressing something else Dix had flagged — namely flights from the United States into Victoria and Kelowna.

“I believe officials assumed flights from the U.S. were not internatio­nal flights,” said Horgan. “Of course they are.”

Canadians have been returning from overseas without this announced level of scrutiny for weeks.

Is Horgan concerned that British Columbians may have already returned home without going into isolation and the problem he’s raised may already be here?

“I can’t answer that question directly,” he replied. “But I can say that there was, for example, a repatriati­on flight that arrived last weekend. I sent one of my colleagues, parliament­ary secretary Ravi Kahlon, who will be co-ordinating volunteers to make sure that we have translatio­n services at the airport. YVR has been very good. I have spoken with the CEO there and his team.”

Having said that, Horgan did concede “we have been raising this with the federal government for some time.”

A criticism? Perish the thought. “I don’t want to characteri­ze this as a criticism, because we are all making this up as we go. And we identified this as a problem early on.”

Both government­s are indeed making it up as they go along. So are government­s everywhere. Some moved to bring in more stringent controls at their borders weeks ago.

New Zealand, for instance, announced March 13 that henceforth everyone arriving at its airports, New Zealanders or otherwise, would have to isolate for 14 days.

That move and an early stay-athome lockdown are credited with having reduced the impact of the outbreak in a country with about the same population as B.C.

As of this week, New Zealand was reporting about the same number of cases as B.C. (1,200 plus), but only 12 hospitaliz­ations and one death. Of course there are other factors, not least that it is easier to isolate an island than one with land borders as porous and well-travelled as ours.

Still, when the time comes to review how the outbreak unfolded, it may be concluded that the good moves the premier announced this week should have been made sooner and right across the country.

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