Transport committee  Again, I echo everything Dr. Bogoch has said. Both of us have talked extensively about the Atlantic bubble and what's worked and what hasn't. There are downstream effects, as you say, such as the tourism industry's importance on other people's livelihoods. However, at the end o

Transport committee  I agree. There's a creativity issue, unfortunately. I think there's a risk tolerance issue in the medical community for not using these tests. Again, people are not getting tested as appropriately as possible. We're seeing people quarantine, going through that devastation of havi

Transport committee  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 l

Transport committee  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 Au

Transport committee  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 wi

Transport committee  That's a good question. Again, as Dr. Bogoch said, I would be happy to fly at this point, recognizing the other features. The biggest risk factor to flying right now is your destination, particularly knowing what's happening in other parts of the world, rather than necessarily t

Transport committee  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 d

Transport committee  If you were looking for an outcome to have zero cases show up that could be infectious to the community, then, yes, you would go with the 14-day approach. You would miss one of 100, going down that road. You know, when the CDC focused on shortening the quarantine period, it was

Transport committee  Yes. Absolutely. On the 0.7%, some of it was related to people who were positive, who were non-infectious but still shedding, who went on a flight and got back to Canada, and who probably got infected in their place of origin, in that sense. Some who were caught there were actual

Transport committee  Yes, it's a single test, so you take the results along with the type of patient you are testing. If the probability of that person's having COVID is low—the person is asymptomatic and is feeling fine—and the test is negative, yes, the sensitivity says that we might miss a few of

Transport committee  Most individuals who are positive, who have been exposed, show up with their symptoms early, in the first three to five days, post exposure. You can track people in terms of, “My family member was positive. I was exposed.” Their detectable viral load is often 48 hours to 72 hours

Transport committee  The major rapid test that's available on the Canadian market right now is the Panbio by Abbott. This is a lateral flow assay. It looks very much like a pregnancy test. People get a nasopharyngeal swab. From what I understand, Health Canada is looking at approving nasal swabs to m

Transport committee  It's a good question. I know the people whom I work with intimately at the lab at McMaster are very innovative. They have a lot of capacity to deal with this type of testing. The reality is there's a hierarchy of needs. The highest priority in the hierarchy of needs currently is

Transport committee  I'd also ask Dr. Bogoch to weigh in here because he also sits on a fairly large provincial vaccine committee.

Transport committee  I think from my standpoint, in the NACI recommendations, which are our federal recommendations, there is a recommendation for front-facing individuals like firefighters, teachers, police officers, but not in the first wave of vaccination. That is down the list after health care w