Thousands of international travelers still arriving in Canada's airports despite coronavirus restrictions

While Canada has dwindled the amount of US and international flights coming into the country due to COVID-19 containment measure, there are still thousands of passengers flying in each week to the country's airports.

This issue is a cause for concern by at least one epidemiologist.

"The fact of the matter is this pandemic arrived everywhere in the world through travel," said Colin Furness to CBC, who also works an assistant professor with the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information.

"We should be closing our borders as much as we can. We can't bring [the number of entrants] down to zero but we should get as close as we can."

Canada Border Services said that 356,673 air travelers came into Canada from the US last year during the week of May 11-17. At the same time this year, there was a nearly 99 percent drop, as that number shrunk to 3,691.

International travel has also seen a 97 percent drop from last year's total of 374,775. During that same week this year, 10,845 arrived at one of the four Canadian airports that accept international flights—Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver.

Since March 23, 76,072 passengers from the US and 193,438 international passengers have arrived in Canada.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced two months ago that for air travel specifically, as of March 18, the government was not allowing foreign nationals from countries except the US.

But an order in council later that same month exempted a number of people, including immediate family members of a Canadian citizen, emergency providers, temporary foreign workers, and international students.

This came at a time when the majority of COVID-19 cases were thought to be travel-related. But since those restrictions have been implemented, travel-related cases of COVID-19 have dropped significantly.

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, 81 percent of all coronavirus cases were related to community transmission. Meanwhile, the remaining 19 percent could be chalked up to those who had come into contact with someone who had recently traveled, or had traveled themselves.

"The data from PHAC suggest that since the borders were closed, international travel is rarely a cause of cases in Canada — the biggest category by far is domestic spread," said Dr. Michael Gardam, an infectious disease specialist and chief of staff at Humber River Hospital in Toronto, through email.

"I don't think the risk [of international travel] is zero but it is much lower than it used to be, especially since international arrivals must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival."

But Furness added that some countries which have gotten the virus under control have experienced small spikes of infections due to travel.

"It may well be that we're not seeing a large number of travel-related cases, but one case can then spawn one more, which then spawns a whole ton of community spread," Furness said.

Anyone who is arriving in Canada by air or land must complete a contact tracing form to help PHAC monitor and enforce a two-week quarantine or isolation requirement. Failure to comply with the Quarantine Act could lead to a fine of up to $750,000 and/or six months in prison.

"Those that aren't [self-isolating] I imagine are in the minority," said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist and researcher based at Toronto General Hospital.

"I think it's safe to assume the vast majority of those individuals are adhering to the 14 days isolation."

PHAC made known last week that police officers have visited the houses of nearly 2,200 residents in an effort to ensure Canadians are complying with the self-isolation rules when they return to the country.

But PHAC has mentioned that there have been no arrests since the implementation of the Quarantine Act.

Trudeau nevertheless told reporters last week that "we need to do more to ensure that travellers who are coming back from overseas or from the United States ... are properly followed up on, are properly isolated and don't become further vectors for the spread of COVID-19."

He also mentioned that conversations were ongoing with premiers regarding monitoring tools for those arriving in Canada.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced that his government intended to implement more stringent measures at the province's two major airports in Calgary and Edmonton in order to screen passengers from outside Canada for symptoms of the disease.

Travelers who arrive from outside the country will have to undergo temperature scans and provide provincial officials with details of their two-week mandatory quarantine strategy. This includes where plan to stay and how they will get there.

Travelers without such a plan will be isolated on site, Kenney said.

Last month, the federal government announced that air travelers would need to wear masks while in transit and whenever maintaining two meter's separation was not possible.

Passengers going in and out of Canada must prove they have a non-medical mask or face covering with them during the boarding process. If they cannot, the person may not be able to continue their travel.

Some airlines have lessened the amount of tickets they sell, or ensure that the middle seat remains open.

However, the International Air Transport Association suggested last month that it was time to relax the in-flight restrictions.