Thank you so much.
Thank you very much for the invitation to speak at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the aviation sector. I don't have a ton of time, so I'm going to jump right in.
Let's start with two key issues and then some solutions.
Issue number one is clearly the protection of travellers and personnel, which means crew and others who work in the industry, from COVID-19. Issue number two, of course, is the impact that national and international travel will have on the spread of infectious diseases, including COVID-19.
Let's start with the first one, which is the protection of travellers and personnel. In general, from an infectious disease transmission standpoint, flying is a pretty safe thing to do. There is a common misperception that people frequently get infections from air travel; however, the perception of risk is disproportionately high compared to the actual risk.
There are certainly cases of infections, especially respiratory infections, transmitted on planes, and there certainly are credible cases of COVID-19 transmitted on planes as well, but these are actually rare events, and they are especially rare when you consider the volume of people travelling. There is growing data, including Canadian data, to back this up.
Why is this the case? You would think that planes are exactly what we have been told to avoid. They're indoors and are close, crowded and confined spaces, and that's where the virus is most easily transmitted, but planes are engineered beautifully, and the ventilation systems, coupled with universal masking, make air travel much safer. There is good data demonstrating this nationally and internationally, and we can delve into that later if anyone wishes.
Number one, people need real protection from infection while flying. Number two, they need to understand how they're being protected and transparency on what and where the risks are, such that they can make informed decisions. This will build back confidence in the aviation sector.
I'd like to briefly touch on another important area, and that's the impact national and international travel has on the spread of infectious diseases, including COVID-19. This is a problem.
I’ve been studying this for years and have evaluated how other infections move regionally and globally through human mobility patterns, including via air travel: diseases such as Ebola, Zika, chikungunya and, more recently, COVID-19. We actually even looked at the international spread of this infection in early January, before we knew it was a coronavirus.
As people move, they bring infections with them, and if the aviation sector is to be up and running at full tilt, this has to be acknowledged and addressed. How can we facilitate safe and ethical travel and allow the general population to have confidence that their safety needs are being met? I think we can do this with six big steps.
Step number one is that we have to expand the focus of safety beyond the airplane itself. We should focus on travel, beginning from the time one leaves their home to the time they arrive at their final destination. Attention to each step of travel, such as public transit to the airport, checking in at the gate and lining up to get on the plane, will provide incremental safety to travellers and build confidence in travel, which will help the aviation sector.
Number two is public education, which is directly related to the point above. It's one thing to expand the scope of safety, but this has to be meaningfully communicated to potential travellers to ensure it is realized and operationalized.
Number three is integration of rapid diagnostic tests. There are increasing numbers of products and improving characteristics of these tests. They can be extremely helpful in the aviation sector, and they could be mobilized to tremendous capacity.
Number four is vaccination in Canada. The vaccine rollout in Canada is probably starting next week, and this will clearly provide significant protection and confidence for Canadian travellers. We will likely see public health measures slowly lift as 2021 moves on and more and more Canadians are vaccinated. With more Canadians vaccinated, there will be confidence in air travel, because there will be less fear of people getting this infection.
Number five is global vaccination. We have to support global vaccination initiatives, and we do. There's a program called Covax, which is an international collaborative effort to secure vaccines for low-income countries, and Canada is participating in it. This is clearly the ethical thing to do, but it will also make for safer air travel and build confidence.
Lastly, number six, we really need the active participation of the aviation sector in national and global infectious diseases surveillance activities. This can come in many forms in terms of screening passengers, screening waste water on airplanes, swabbing surfaces, etc., but participation in this process can help national and global efforts to combat the spread of emerging infectious diseases such as what we've seen with COVID-19.
I thank you for your time.