Transport Committee on Dec. 10th, 2020

[Dr. Zain Chagla]

McMaster has been involved in the Pearson study; that's travellers coming off Air Canada flights voluntarily at Pearson airport. The Calgary pilot is being run in that sense by the health authorities provincially.

Part of the McMaster study was point-of-entry testing and then day seven testing. It doesn't change quarantine; it's essentially a data-finding expedition in that sense. There is no public health advice tied to it.

Calgary is different in the sense that they're using day two testing to release people from quarantine and then using a day seven test as a follow-up for those people. They're contracted to do the test, day two and day seven, but they're using the day two rapid test to take people out of quarantine and then using the fail-safe of day seven, telling those people to be very careful about their interactions. They are not necessarily imposing a strict quarantine, just masking and minimizing interactions, not going to public places, and not seeing vulnerable individuals. Day seven would be getting a secondary test and if the secondary test is negative, then they can go about their business as normal.

I have to apologize. I don't know what's going on in Montreal. You're probably the first one to mention it to me.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Dr. Chagla.

This question is for Dr. Bogoch. Some countries are considering requiring medical proof of a negative test before allowing a person entry into their territory.

Do you think that it would be good for us to look at doing the same?

[Dr. Isaac Bogoch]

Oh my God, that's the hardest question.

I really have been thinking about that a lot over the last couple of days. I honestly can't give you a good answer just yet. We definitely need documentation. We need to ensure public health and public safety. We need to know if people are infected and pose a risk to the Canadian public. However, there certainly are major ethical issues. To really delve deep into that, I would love to speak with medical ethicists and also to really have a good understanding of what the values are of the Canadian population.

I don't mean to punt this one. I just really don't have a good answer for this question, unfortunately.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Dr. Bogoch.

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

We're now going to move to the NDP.

Mr. Bachrach, you have the floor for two and half minutes.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Chagla, I'm wondering if you can comment on this idea of travel corridors. I know that other countries, such as the U.K., are using this idea of travel between countries with low case counts as a way to eliminate the quarantine requirement. Can you comment on the efficacy of that or on any issues from your perspective?

[Dr. Zain Chagla]

Yes.

The concept is that you go to lower-epidemiology or lower-instance countries, and therefore your risk is not dissimilar to my risk of driving to Toronto and then driving to Hamilton on a daily basis in that sense.

Certainly, with regard to countries like New Zealand and Australia, I think there's some validity there. The problem is that you have to be very in tune with the epidemiology of what's going on. There are regional outbreaks that occur in many different places. There are countries where we just don't know the epidemiology. It's interesting; some of the work from the McMaster study is starting to reveal some of these travellers coming back from countries that claim very low incidence but that are actually probably higher than we expect.

The reality, as well, is that I can't fly to New Zealand on my own from Pearson. I have to hop off at an airport, probably in Hong Kong or Dubai or somewhere along those lines. Fine, you were in a low-incidence country, but you stepped into a high-incidence country in an airport and hung out there for 12 hours and then came back.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

My next question, Dr. Chagla, just very briefly, is on temperature checks.

Airlines have been doing temperature checks for quite a while now. Do we have any data on the efficacy of those temperature checks? Are they effective at identifying people who are carrying the virus?

[Dr. Zain Chagla]

One study that I know of that was done in the United States did temperature checks and symptom screens of everyone entering from the airport. Its estimate of effectiveness was 83,000 temperature checks and symptom checks to identify one individual that was positive.

Yes, they will pick up people, but you have to consider what the risks are. To me, also, having a lot of people standing in line waiting to get a symptom screen and a temperature check from an infection control perspective is like, “Oh, God, what is going on here,” right?

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's a risk itself.

I want to try to fit in one more question if I could, Mr. Chair. Am I out of time?

He's giving me the hook.

He's on mute, though, so I am just going to go rogue here and ask Dr. Bogoch about the types of aircraft.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Go ahead, quickly.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Right on.

I'm wondering about the air exchanges. Those are some pretty impressive numbers that you cited—I believe it was you, Dr. Bogoch. Do those run across a range of different types of aircraft?

I fly a lot on small turbo props, and I'm wondering if those airplanes have similar conditions. Sometimes I feel pretty packed in there with a lot of other people.

[Dr. Isaac Bogoch]

Yes, it's actually pretty interesting. It's going to be different for different planes. It probably won't be as good on the smaller planes that you're flying on, unfortunately. Sorry.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thanks for the answer.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Dr. Bogoch.

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

We're now going to move to the Conservatives.

Mr. Soroka, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Bogoch, when you started talking about your trip right from home to the airport and how you were wearing your mask and everything.... Do you think that face masks and temperature control are going to become standard features now at airports and on planes, or is this not an option yet?

[Dr. Isaac Bogoch]

I really think this pandemic is going to wind down. It's going to take some time, but if we just look at the Canadian perspective, as 2020 rolls on, and as more and more people get vaccinated, we will see less and less of this, and less of an impact on the health care system and in the community at large. I really think we're going to start to see the lifting of many of our public health restrictions, including probably allowing larger gatherings, loosening up at the border and lifting mask mandates. It's going to get better.

It stinks right now, and January is going to be ugly, for lack of a better word, but this will get a lot better as soon as vaccines start to roll out.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I'm just concerned with public perceptions now. As you said, a lot of this that we're doing is just to make sure that people feel safe. It's not necessarily helping as much as you'd think, which surprises me about wearing a mask in a seat. You're right in that there are different planes and different ideas, but the mask probably isn't beneficial if you don't have anyone sitting close to you, and that really, the odds of getting an infection are very slim.

[Dr. Isaac Bogoch]

I would say that the masks are certainly helpful, but I really like to think of this as a bundled approach. The use of masks, distancing when possible, the ventilation system on the plane and hand hygiene are really parts of a bundled approach.

It's hard when you start teasing it apart and saying, “Well, I can eliminate this, but I'm going to keep that.” I think it starts to fall apart. If we just keep it bundled together, we'll be as safe as possible.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Okay.

You also mentioned about getting to that herd immunity, that 70% of testing, but until we get to that stage, do you think we'll have some type of vaccination passport that says that I've been vaccinated and I can now travel or that I don't have to have these kinds of restrictions? Is that a possibility?

[Dr. Isaac Bogoch]

I certainly think it's a possibility. I just think we really have to have a firm understanding of what the values of Canadians are concerning that.

Certainly, we know people who are vaccinated are very unlikely to get this infection, and if they do get this infection, they're probably—and I have to be careful with my words—less likely to transmit it.

I think we have to gauge the value of Canadians to see if that's something they would be amenable to, because there certainly are equity issues with that. Not everyone can travel and not everyone might have access to a vaccine. We're prioritizing the vaccines with different groups. There are going to be enormous equity issues with passports, which would have to be addressed.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Taylor, you haven't had many questions, so maybe I'll ask you one.

When it comes to your PCR test, you're saying that it is the gold standard. Would you mind telling me the accuracy of your gold standard test of the PCRs?

[Patrick Taylor]

Accuracy is built upon historic use, and it's the principal product used globally.

The actual accuracy is more a question for Dr. Bogoch, to be perfectly honest.

The efficacy of the test is well established. If I could hand that to Dr. Bogoch or Dr. Chagla, they will give you a more incisive response to this, but we build the most commonly accurate test globally.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Okay. Either can answer.

[Dr. Zain Chagla]

The problem with saying an exact number is that PCR is the gold standard, so it's hard to compare a gold standard with a gold standard.

Some of the early Chinese data suggested 70% to 80% accuracy. Those were really poorly constructed tests, with lots of different reagents and lots of different parts. They were not great. Better accuracy is probably at 90% to 95%. Again, it depends on where you're getting them and the context of their infections. Very early or very late, you can still miss people.

Looking at data from the Ontario public health labs, when people are tested, in the few tests that are done serially—I think there were about 8,000 cases, or something like that, where people were tested twice, which we often do in hospitals when we are very suspicious—there were about 2.5% that flipped over from negative to positive on the next test, so you do miss people.

Again, this is the gold standard, so it's hard to say what's better than this in that sense.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Yes, that's fair enough.

Mr. Taylor, you test various surfaces. Have you discovered how long COVID lasts on certain surfaces, where it lasts the longest, or anything like that?