Canada’s auditor general has issued a scathing report of the public health agency’s record on enforcing COVID-19 restrictions at the border.
The report covers the first half of the year and calls for improvements to the way Ottawa tracks public compliance with quarantine orders.
Early this year, the federal government began requiring all air travelers returning from non-essential trips overseas to isolate in government mandated facilities for up to 72 hours while awaiting COVID-19 test results. People arriving at land borders had to take those tests when they entered the country and again during a 14-day isolation period.
But Auditor General Karen Hogan painted a grim and chaotic picture of Canadian health agency officials' record on enforcing those requirements for the first half of 2021.
"At the beginning of the pandemic, the agency was unable to confirm quarantine compliance for 66 percent of travelers arriving in Canada," Hogan said. "Although we found that the percentage had dropped to 37%, this is not a success story. The agency’s inability to confirm whether more than one third of travelers complied with quarantine orders remains a significant problem."
Hogan found that the public health agency did not have records of stay for 75% of travelers who flew into Canada and didn’t know if those who were supposed to stay at quarantine hotels actually did. It considered more than 136,000 travelers high risk for non-compliance with mandatory quarantine orders and of those cases, the agency was not aware of the outcome for 59% of them.
It goes on. From February to June, the public health agency was unable to find COVD-19 test results for 30% of travelers. Nearly 40% of those with missing tests were not contacted, 14% of travelers did not complete tests on arrival, 26% did not complete post arrival tests and 14% who tested positive were not contacted.
Hogan said the figures mentioned were an improvement from her report in March, but they are concerning.
“I’m disappointed that they hadn’t applied lessons learned from this first round of measures to the new border control measures," she said. "And it’s clear that they need to improve their ability to monitor and enforce the measures at the border.”
The Canadian government was quick to acknowledge the auditor general’s reports.
“The government’s response has been far from perfect," said Jean Yves Duclos, the federal minister of health. "We acknowledge this and we are making no excuses for it. We can and we must do better.”
Duclos also pointed out that the AG acknowledged the situation has improved. He offered what he called some of the critical facts about more recent measures, including compliance and verification calls and visits to returning travelers.
"As a result of these activities, over 90% of travelers required to quarantine fulfilled their obligations. In addition, more than 7,000 enforcement actions were taken, more than 15,000 individuals stayed at the designated quarantine facility managed by the federal government. And we completed more than 2.8 million post-arrival tests to limit the importation and spread of COVID 19 and its variants of concern."
Recently the Canadian government implemented new travel rules in a bid to curb the spread of the new COVID-19 variant, known as Omicron.
Incoming air travelers from all countries except the U.S. are to be tested for COVID-19 when they arrive, whether they are vaccinated or not. They will also have to quarantine until those tests are returned negative. That’s in addition to the requirement that all incoming travelers to Canada pass a COVID test within three days of their departure.
But public perception about quarantine measures could also be damaging the effectiveness of the strategy. Travelers say they’re uncertain about whether they will be tested at airports when they return, while others are unhappy with the federally mandated quarantine hotels.
For now it appears that the issues of testing and quarantine at airports will remain chaotic. The health minister said Canadian airports don’t yet have the capacity to fully test all international arrivals, and he can’t say when that will happen.
Travel groups say. for now, the situation will continue to be confusing and chaotic. And with the Omicron variant gaining momentum, the situation could suddenly worsen.