The federal government is close to removing mandatory PCR testing for fully vaccinated Candians who travel outside Canada, sources tell CBC News.
Currently any person who travels outside of the country must provide proof of a negative molecular test (such as a PCR test) prior to boarding an inbound flight home.
The test must be taken within 72 hours of scheduled departure on a flight or arrival at a land border.
Federal ministers and public health officials are holding a news conference this morning. The federal government is expected to say they are actively reviewing the border measures and more details will come next week. CBCNews.ca is streaming the event.
The sources revealed the information one day after two infectious diseases physicians joined forces with the travel industry to call for an end to all testing requirements for fully vaccinated travellers.
At a news conference held at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on Thursday, Dr. Dominik Mertz and Dr. Zain Chagla — along with the Tourism Industry Association of Canada — argued that Canada’s testing requirements for travellers are pointless, because Omicron has already spread across the country.
“The risk for the average traveller coming in is in the same ballpark as if you were testing a random person in downtown Toronto. It’s not going to make a difference,” said Mertz, an infectious diseases specialist with McMaster University in Hamilton.
Infectious disease specialists Dr. Dominik Mertz, centre, and Dr. Zain Chagla, right, attended a news conference Thursday calling on the federal government to drop all testing requirements for fully vaccinated travellers. (YouTube/Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable)
The latest call to drop Canada’s testing requirements comes as several provinces have relaxed COVID-19 restrictions and a growing number of Canadians are making international travel plans.
High cost of travel rules
Travellers entering Canada must pay for their pre-arrival molecular test, which can cost upwards of $100.
The government is also spending millions of dollars to randomly test thousands of vaccinated travellers daily upon arrival.
At the news conference, Chagla argued the money spent on tests by both the government and individuals is a wasted expense.
“There is something to be said about the cost here, both for the individuals but [also] for the public for testing that may not … be preventing a lot of people from spreading COVID-19 locally,” said Chagla, an associate professor at McMaster University.
Better ways to look for Omicron than testing travellers, says specialist
22 hours ago
Duration 1:44
Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Zain Chagla makes a case for why Canada’s COVID-19 testing requirements for travellers need to change. 1:44
Jeannette Smith, of Porters Lake, N.S., feels the $300 US she spent on two PCR tests to return to Canada was a waste of money. Smith and her husband drove to Fairfax, Va., in December to visit their daughter.
The couple paid for expedited PCR tests in Fairfax. The results were supposed to arrive within two days, but, due to high demand, they didn’t arrive in time.
Smith said the couple decided to cross the border anyway, because a snow storm was coming and they feared it would lead to highway closures.
Steve and Jeannette Smith of Porters Lake, N.S., paid $300 US for two PCR tests to return to Canada, but didn’t get the results in time when crossing the border. (Submitted by Jeannette Smith)
She said they didn’t get fined, but that a Health Canada official at the border noted on their files that they entered the country without a test.
“We’re really concerned about when we cross the next time,” said Smith. “Here we are doing everything that we’re supposed to do, following all the rules to the letter, and it still didn’t work out.”
Smith and her husband finally did get their negative test results — after they arrived home. She said she supports Canada’s COVID-19 measures, but believes the time has come to relax the rules for fully vaccinated travellers.
“We’re getting to the point with the pandemic that more and more people are vaccinated and [we should] allow a little more freedom for those people.”
Other health experts generally agree, but with caveats
CBC News asked 10 other medical professionals their opinions on dropping testing requirements for travellers. In general, they supported nixing the current testing rules for fully vaccinated travellers, but some listed caveats.
Several recommended that travellers take a pre-arrival antigen test instead of a molecular test. Although PCR tests can be more accurate, antigen tests are much cheaper and can provide results within minutes.
“The other passengers and the people who are working on that flight should not have to be on a flight with someone who is positive,” said Tara Moriarty, an infectious disease researcher and associate professor at the University of Toronto.
“Rapid tests are probably a better way to go and then that’s also something that can be done at the airport.”
Canadians weigh travel concerns ahead of March break
2 days ago
Duration 1:48
A continued advisory against non-essential travel and COVID-19 testing requirements have some Canadians reconsidering international travel over March break and some experts questioning the value of the restrictions. 1:48
Dr. Prabhat Jha, an epidemiologist at St. Michael’s hospital in Toronto, also recommended switching to antigen tests, and suggested the government change the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ to those who have also had their booster shot.
Montreal epidemiologist and cardiologist Dr. Christopher Labos cautioned that if Canada dropped all test requirements, it would need to have a solid plan in place to quickly redeploy them if necessary.
When it comes to arrival testing, Moriarty said she would like the government to still do surveillance testing of some travellers, but without requiring them to quarantine while they wait for their test results.
“All the resources that are put into this would be far better deployed into surveillance … so that we have some eyes on what might be coming in terms of variants.”
At a news conference last month, Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam suggested surveillance testing, rather than mass testing of passengers upon arrival, would be a better use of resources.
“It is a capacity drain on the systems as a whole,” she said. “The whole world has Omicron.”
Some countries, such as the United Kingdom and Denmark, have dropped all test requirements for fully vaccinated travellers.
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit an all-time low in the U.S. this year, part of a big drop in the youth use of tobacco overall, the government reported Thursday.
There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs. The number went from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year — the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key survey began in 1999.
“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, in a statement. However, “our mission is far from complete.”
A previously reported drop in vaping largely explains the overall decline in tobacco use from 10% to about 8% of students, health officials said.
The youth e-cigarette rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% last year — the lowest at any point in the last decade. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, followed by nicotine pouches.
Use of other products has been dropping, too.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of high school students smoked. This year, it was just 1.7%, down from the 1.9%. That one-year decline is so small it is not considered statistically significant, but marks the lowest since the survey began 25 years ago. The middle school rate also is at its lowest mark.
Recent use of hookahs also dropped, from 1.1% to 0.7%.
The results come from an annual CDC survey, which included nearly 30,000 middle and high school students at 283 schools. The response rate this year was about 33%.
Officials attribute the declines to a number of measures, ranging from price increases and public health education campaigns to age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers selling products to kids.
Among high school students, use of any tobacco product dropped to 10%, from nearly 13% and e-cigarette use dipped under 8%, from 10%. But there was no change reported for middle school students, who less commonly vape or smoke or use other products,
Current use of tobacco fell among girls and Hispanic students, but rose among American Indian or Alaska Native students. And current use of nicotine pouches increased among white kids.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.
There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.
The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.
Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.
Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.
“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.
But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.
That includes his own teenage daughter.
“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.
It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.
“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama man was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in the January hack of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission social media account that led the price of bitcoin to spike, the Justice Department said.
Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, is accused of helping to break into the SEC’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, allowing the hackers to prematurely announce the approval of long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC’s account was compromised. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.
Authorities say Council carried out what’s known as a “SIM swap,” using a fake ID to impersonate someone with access to the SEC’s X account and convince a cellphone store to give him a SIM card linked to the person’s phone. Council was able to take over the person’s cellphone number and get access codes to the SEC’s X account, which he shared with others who broke into the account and sent the post, the Justice Department says.
Prosecutors say after Council returned the iPhone he used for the SIM swap, his online searches included: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
An email seeking comment was sent Thursday to an attorney for Council, who is charged in Washington’s federal court with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
The price of bitcoin swung from about $46,730 to just below $48,000 after the unauthorized post hit on Jan. 9 and then dropped to around $45,200 after the SEC’s denial. The SEC officially approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin the following day.
