Can Rapid Testing At Airports Help Burst The Atlantic Bubble?
HALIFAX — Atlantic Canada has become world-renowned for how well it has kept citizens safe during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Controlling travel into the region through Atlantic Bubble has helped keep the virus largely under control. But mandatory quarantines have been a significant deterrent keeping people from travelling into the region, which has negative repercussions for the airports, airlines and the economy at large.
As new testing methods become available and health officials learn more about managing the virus, the region’s traveller-starved airports say it might be time to burst the bubble.
Last month, Westjet suspended more than 100 flights in and out of Atlantic Canada, slashing its seat capacity in the region by 80 percent.
Air Canada has also announced it has cancelled its longstanding flight between Sydney and Halifax at least until the end of November.
RELATED: Westjet Axes Nearly All Atlantic Canadian Flights
Monette Pasher is the executive director of the Atlantic Canada Airports Association. She says traffic at Atlantic Canadian airports is down by close to 90 percent — and she doesn’t see things improving soon.
“We’re losing a lot of our service that’s been around a really long time and I guess we’re concerned about what’s coming,” she says. “I’d love to talk to you about rounding a corner here, but that’s really not where we are.”
Pasher says the mandatory, 14-day quarantine imposed on anyone entering the Atlantic Bubble is a major factor in people’s decisions not to fly.
“With the travel restrictions in place in our region it really just hampers what little demand there actually is,” she says. “I think the travel restrictions are the biggest impediment to losing our air service right now.”
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On the west coast, where provinces don’t have the same strict quarantining, Pasher says airports are back to about 30 percent of their normal traffic.
Atlantic airports are right now seeing 10 percent of their usual traffic. Pasher guesses that number could go up to about 20-25 percent with a rapid-testing program in place.
It’s not a huge jump in traffic, but Pasher says it could make a major difference for struggling Atlantic airports.
“Do I think the floodgate is going to open? Absolutely not. I think this is going to be a long, slow road back,” she says.
Test Every Single Flyer
But what would a testing program look like in Atlantic Canada?
Pasher points out that the long-term goal is to have a global standard for testing across the entire airline industry. But that is out of provincial governments’ hands and she doesn’t think Atlantic airports should wait for that to be established.
Instead, she wants to see Atlantic Canada follow the lead of places like Calgary and start testing ways to use Covid-19 tests to reduce quarantine times.
In Calgary, residents and eligible international travellers can take a test for Covid-19 and reduce their quarantine to as little as two days with a negative result.
After they’re cleared, they’re free to leave isolation as long as they continue monitoring for symptoms. They then take a second test about a week later to re-confirm they are Covid-19 negative.
Pasher says a similar program could be easily set up at Atlantic Canadian airports.
Even better, she says, would be to use rapid, “point of care” tests that can return results within minutes, right on site.
Using rapid tests, officials could test every single person landing in an airport. Anyone who tests negative could skip quarantine (but still follow all the other public health precautions like mask-wearing and social distancing).
Pasher stresses that she is not a public health official and that the specifics of any testing programs would have to come from the appropriate health authority.
However, she argues that testing every single person that enters Atlantic Canada might actually be safer than trusting them to self-isolate.
“The quarantine approach is what we had to do when there was no other option available to us. Now, we’re eight months into the pandemic and if you look at the science around the quarantine it really is a porous approach,” she says. “We’re actually relying on people and their level of honesty to comply with a self-imposed measure.”
“In terms of health impacts of that, there’s risks there. Wouldn’t we be better off to test everyone that’s coming into our region?”
‘No Reason’ Not To Test At Airports
Halifax’s Stanfield International Airport is the busiest airport in Atlantic Canada. Tiffany Chase, an airport spokesperson, believes it’s feasible to test everyone who arrives there by plane.
She says the Halifax airport sees as few as 400-500 passengers a day right now (down from an average of close to 6,000 last year), which she argues is a “very manageable number of people” to test.
She says the airport has areas that are shut down that could easily be used to set up a testing program, meaning space wouldn’t be an issue.
Like Pasher, she says Stanfield would “welcome” a testing program that aims to reduce quarantine times.
Tim Houston, the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia, has also called on the government to make testing at airports available “immediately.” He echoed Pasher, saying blanket testing of all incoming air travellers would help contain the spread of Covid-19.
“Testing negative when you get off a plane doesn’t mean you are Covid-free,” he said. “But a positive test ensures we keep better track of the virus entering the province.”
Last month, the Nova Scotia government announced it was increasing testing capacity in order to be able to process 2,500 tests per day.
“If the province has the extra testing capacity, then there is no reason why they should not be testing at airports,” Houston said. “Point of entry testing is the logical next step for tracking the virus and preventing its spread in our province.”
Health Officials Wary Of Rapid Testing
Chase says officials at Stanfield have been asking the government to pilot some form of rapid testing at the airport but so far they haven’t has any indication that will happen.
Over the past two weeks, the number of Covid-19 cases has spiked in Nova Scotia, leading the province to tighten some travel-related restrictions within the province.
Related: Nova Scotia Tightens Covid-19 Restrictions After Recent Outbreak
Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of health, has said more restrictions could be coming if the virus continues to spread.
He has also appeared wary of rapid testing.
Last week, he said the province is looking into how it might use rapid, “point of care” tests, but cautioned they might not be the solution some think they are.
He said data from manufacturer tests held in optimal conditions often don’t live up to real-world situations and that rapid tests tend to be less accurate than the standard test
“Getting a negative test with one of these rapid tests doesn’t necessarily mean [you] don’t have Covid-19,” Strang said, adding that, should the province use them, it will have to do so “thoughtfully and very carefully.”
With Covid-19 cases on the rise across Canada, Pasher acknowledged that keeping Atlantic Canadians safe should still be health officials’ top priority. However, she said testing in airports doesn’t have to — and shouldn’t — mean that’s not happening.
“I don’t think we’re asking our provincial governments to throw caution and safety to the wind in the name of economic recovery so we can grow back [flight traffic] by 10 percent,” she said.
“If there was no other option then the 14-day self-isolation that would be one thing, but we’ve moved forward and … I think now science has evolved to the point where [the right testing regimen] would be a less porous approach than what we are doing right now. I think it would be an added level of safety.”
Trevor Nichols is a reporter for Huddle in Halifax. Send him an e-mail with your story suggestions: [email protected].