Ottawa requiring COVID-19 testing for some travellers, consulting experts on booster shots
Measures are in response to emergence of the omicron variant
Incoming air travellers from all countries except the United States will be required to take COVID-19 tests when arriving in Canada, the federal government announced today.
The tests will be required of all travellers, regardless of their vaccination status, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said today. The requirement will also apply to Canadian citizens and permanent residents.
Incoming travellers will have to self-isolate until they receive results of the test.
Duclos said the new testing requirement will go into effect "as quickly and as much as possible over the next few days."
The new measure is part of Canada's rapidly evolving strategy to contain the spread of the omicron variant of the novel coronavirus.
The variant's emergence last week has prompted the return of border closures, travel restrictions and stricter testing requirements across the world.
WATCH | Health minister Jean-Yves Duclos on banning travellers from certain countries
Canada's attempt to contain the variant now includes bans on travellers from 10 nations, all of them in Africa. The government named seven nations to its restricted list last week, and today added Egypt, Malawi and Nigeria.
Incoming travellers from those 10 countries will have to quarantine in designated facilities, officials said. Other travellers will be allowed to quarantine at home or at other locations.
Public health officials said the nations were singled out because of a higher than normal number of positive test results among travellers arriving from those countries.
But the introduction of travel bans has been criticized as ineffective and discriminatory toward African nations where vaccines are not widely available. There are also concerns that a global backlash against the region could dissuade other countries from reporting future variants.
The omicron variant has also now been detected across the globe — in countries including Canada, Israel and Hong Kong, among others.
Provincial governments in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia have confirmed local cases of the variant. Federal health officials say there are at least six cases of the variant in Canada so far.
"There will be, most likely, community transmission of the new variant at some point in Canada," Duclos said.
Dr. Howard Njoo, Canada's deputy chief public health officer, described the travel restrictions as a temporary measure meant to help the government adapt.
"We can't close down our borders," Njoo said. "This is a measure to gain time, in order to have a better understanding of the virus."
Duclos said Ottawa will consult with provincial governments to determine how testing for U.S. travellers could be implemented in the event public health officials recommend an expansion of the new testing regime.
Government seeks 'guidance' on boosters
Duclos also announced today that the federal government has asked the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) to provide "quick guidance on whether we should revise national standards, national attitudes and actions on the use of boosters in Canada in the context of the new omicron variant."
NACI currently recommends a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine for people deemed to be at high risk of waning protection against the disease, such as people 80 and older or those living in long-term care facilities.
Boosters are also available to other people considered to be high-risk, such as health care workers, Indigenous peoples and those who received the AstraZeneca or Janssen vaccines.
WATCH | Transport Minister Omar Alghabra on new travel restrictions
Large number of mutations
The omicron variant is notable because it has a large number of mutations, which may affect its transmissibility and the effect of COVID-19 vaccines.
In an interview with the U.K.-based Financial Times, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel predicted existing vaccines will be much less effective at tackling omicron.
"There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level ... we had with [the] delta [variant]," Bancel said.
"I think it's going to be a material drop. I just don't know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I've talked to ... are like, 'This is not going to be good.'"
While Moderna's leader is signalling concern about the effectiveness of vaccines against the omicron variant, the co-founder of BioNTech — the company that co-developed the Comirnaty vaccine with Pfizer — said today that while the new variant could lead to more infections, it's likely that fully vaccinated people will still be protected from severe illness.
"Our message is, 'Don't freak out, the plan remains the same. Speed up the administration of a third booster shot,'" Ugur Sahin told the Wall Street Journal.
Vaccines teach the immune system — which includes both antibodies and T-cells — to recognize part of a virus. Antibodies prevent people from becoming infected in the first place. A T cell is a type of white blood cell that responds to viral infections and boosts the immune function of other cells. While omicron may evade vaccine-induced antibodies, Sahin said that no variant has so far eluded that T-cell immune response.
WATCH: Dr. David Naylor, co-chair of Canada's COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, joins Power & Politics to talk about travel restrictions
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist and researcher based at Toronto General Hospital, said Canadians shouldn't hang on every word coming from a vaccine company's CEO.
"I want to hear from the scientists doing the actual studies, what they think and what they're seeing," Bogoch said, adding there will be much more clarity about vaccine efficacy in the weeks ahead.
While conceding he's just speculating as laboratory studies continue, Bogoch said he thinks available vaccines will still prove useful in the fight against COVID-19.
"It would be extremely unusual for a variant to emerge that completely erases the protective immunity of vaccines," he said. "It might chip away at some of the effectiveness but it would be extremely unusual that our vaccines, and or vaccine programs, are now rendered useless."
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh called on Trudeau to take a position on waiving intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines so that more countries can produce vaccines like the Pfizer and Moderna locally.
"It's not enough for us to support Canadians and do our part here in Canada. We also have to help countries around the world, and those particularly that have less means to purchase vaccines," Singh said.
The NDP leader said protecting pharmaceutical companies' profits can't take precedence over the goal of getting everyone vaccinated. Canada, he said, should be pushing this idea with urgency.
WATCH: Singh calls for changes to vaccine patent laws
While some Western countries have signalled they're open to discussing IP waivers, industry experts say these changes alone would not boost vaccine availability in the developing world — where supply chain bottlenecks and a scarcity of raw materials are also affecting the availability of shots.
In South Africa, where vaccine doses are relatively plentiful, vaccine hesitancy has been the main roadblock to the immunization campaign.
Singh also questioned the government's decision to limit travel from seven countries in southern Africa, saying that while he is open to hearing better evidence, "testing and quarantining" seems to be a better approach.
Flight bans and measures to limit travel are not the most helpful tools in the global fight against the pandemic, Singh said.
"It really is going to come down to the number one, most effective tool we have ... getting people vaccinated. And to do that, Canada has to take a role in pushing for a waiver of those vaccine patents," he said.
With files from the CBC's Ryan Maloney
