Canada’s plan to require all arriving air travellers to provide a negative test result for COVID-19 starting this week (Jan. 7) while refusing to lift quarantine regulations is the worst of both worlds, says IATA.

The International Air Transport Association says its pleas for systematic testing to re-open borders without quarantine measures have fallen on deaf ears for months – especially in Canada.

But now that the negative test requirements are finally being mandated (travellers must receive a negative result within 72 of arrival), but without removing existing 14-day quarantine protocols, it can only be described as the ‘worst of both worlds,’ says IATA.

Proclaiming that Canada already has one of the world’s most draconian COVID-19 border control regimes, including travel bans and quarantines, an irate IATA hardly held back, declaring:

• It is both callous and impractical to impose this new requirement on travellers at such short notice.

• It is completely unrealistic to mandate that airlines check passengers’ compliance with the new rule, as it cannot be the airline’s role to determine if a passenger tried their utmost to get tested or not.

• Even though COVID-19 testing is an internationally accepted risk-mitigation strategy, there are no plans to adjust the current 14-day quarantine rule nor eliminate the temperature checks airlines are required to perform on passengers wishing to travel to Canada.

• No explanation has been provided as to why a PCR test is the only acceptable test, given that this is not readily available in many countries.

IATA says that severe economic consequences of the prolonged Canadian border closure are already evident with the latest estimates showing that the aviation sector’s direct GDP contribution to Canada’s economy dropped by US$10.39 billion in 2020 vs 2019, placing some 146,000 Canadian jobs at risk.

The year-on-year fall in GDP contribution to the wider travel and tourism economy is estimated at US$21.29 billion with some 286,000 jobs at risk, says IATA.

Less measurable, but equally tragic is the impact that these tunnel-vision policies to close Canada off from the world are having on individuals separated from families or those struggling to cope with unemployment, the association continues.

While IATA agrees that public health is the top priority, it believes that efforts to contain COVID-19 should be based on a well-planned and coordinated introduction of testing inbound travellers, as a replacement for quarantine measures.

IATA says it is incumbent on the Government of Canada to put the testing initiative on hold until:

• It has defined testing requirements and coordinated with the industry to achieve realistic implementation timelines;

• Put in place a policy roadmap to safely re-open borders by managing the risk of contagion with testing as a replacement for quarantine measures.

At current infection levels, testing travellers will ensure that opening borders will not pose additional risk of contagion in Canada. We challenge the government to prove otherwise, IATA states, adding, What is the point of implementing testing if it does not result in a lifting of border closures nor quarantine requirements?

After nine-months of closed borders and confinement, we cannot afford to move in the wrong direction with the disastrous implementation of a counter-productive testing policy.