Our staff take it very seriously and take the safety of everyone very seriously. I actually am glad that you witnessed that.
I'll start with the Alberta pilot project, because it's front and centre and really critical. Notwithstanding the Prime Minister's announcements on Friday, we do think that this pilot project should remain intact. The reason we feel this way is because of his words on Friday. What he committed to was to look at the relationship between quarantine and testing.
Eventually, our country is going to have to safely restart, and we do have to find ways to do this safely. If we have a made-in-Canada study with that data and research and with experience from air carriers, airports and our guests, etc., let's not throw that away. Let's keep that intact. As long as it has the confidence of the public health officials in Alberta and the continued confidence of the Public Health Agency, we think it should remain intact, because it gives us the best footprint and standing in order to move forward.
I'm just looking at my iPhone because I took a screenshot of Dr. Hinshaw's comments yesterday. She was asked about the pilot project as it relates to the spread of variants. I think it's a really important tweet and message that she put out, and I would encourage members to take a look.
She said, “We have detected cases thanks to our lab & border pilot program, which has detected 28 variant cases. Under the pilot, we have tested almost 45K travellers on arrival. This has been a vital tool to stop the virus from spreading quickly within our communities.” She went on to say, “Without this pilot program, our variant case numbers would be lower—but the variants would likely be spreading more widely in our province without us knowing about it. We are working hard to break the chain of transmission but are not out of the woods”.
The Alberta pilot project, Mrs. Kusie, allows for two tests, and it allows public health officials to capture quickly what the variants are or are not. You will note that they've also adjusted the pilot project and that it has shifted from quarantine release on first test to a second test at seven days. Hopefully, I have addressed how critical that is from a public health perspective, completely parking the economic side of that type of pilot project.
I was going to touch on the PCR measure before Christmas. Look, we put out a very tough communication after that announcement, and we did call the policies “incoherent and inconsistent”. That's not typical of our company to speak like that. The reason we felt that way, Mrs. Kusie, is that we did find out about that testing program in the media. We're so committed to public health and we're so committed to doing the right thing that it was very frustrating to not have our recommendations around testing put in place and then to be advised by the media that this was taking place.
The good news is that we did our very best. Our company rallied. We did our best to find tests for our guests and to get them home safely. I think the reaction to that announcement is better illustrated in our commitment to do the right thing for our guests and work collaboratively with the government than it is in our tough public response.
I hope that has touched on some of your questions.