By Caribbean News Global 
MONTREAL, Canada – Air Canada’s chief medical officer issued a letter urging the Canadian government to consider a science-based approach to easing the Quarantine Act restrictions, which have been essentially unchanged since March, to strike a better balance for travellers and for the Canadian economy without adversely impacting public health.
“Air Canada is not proposing relaxing the US border restrictions at this time – only to replace the quarantine requirements for those countries with a low COVID-19 risk from a public health perspective with more proportionate, evidence-based measures and experiences from other countries,” the company said in a press release.
Air Canada notes that other G20 countries have implemented practical, evidence-based approaches to travel by minimizing the risk of COVID-19 exposure through a range of measures endorsed by medical professionals worldwide including:
- Determination of safe corridors or travel between approved jurisdictions with fewer cases on the basis of low risk from a public health perspective (an approach adopted in the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal among others)
- Requirement for a pre-departure, medically certified negative COVID-19 test in order to enter the country (Caribbean islands)
- Waiver of quarantine requirements following a negative test on arrival (Iceland, Austria, Luxembourg)
- Mandatory testing on arrival (South Korea, Hong Kong, Macao, United Arab Emirates)
Air Canada said it has been at the forefront of the airline industry in responding to COVID-19, including:
- “ Being among the first carriers globally to require customer face coverings onboard and the first airline in the Americas to take customers’ temperatures prior to boarding;
- “ In May it introduced a comprehensive program, Air Canada CleanCare+, to apply industry-leading biosafety measures at each stage of the journey;
- “Air Canada has recently undertaken several medical collaborations to further advance biosafety across its business, including with Cleveland Clinic Canada for medical advisory services, Ottawa-based Spartan Bioscience to explore portable COVID-19 testing technology and, since 2019, with Toronto-based BlueDot for real-time infectious disease global monitoring.”
A full copy of Air Canada’s letter signed by its chief medical officer and providing a robust science-based approach for easing the 14-day quarantine is here.
