Experts say the move isn’t very effective.
Australian health authorities said that from Jan 5, air travellers from mainland China, Hong Kong or Macao will need to show a negative Covid-19 test taken within two days of their departure.
Kerry Bowman, assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, said the requirement is “not based on science at this point”.“It’s pretty clear that point-of-entry screening is not very effective at all. Often people can test positive days and weeks later.” “We know from the past that very focused and targeted travel measures such as this don’t do much to prevent the spread of Covid, either by importing Covid to Canada, or by the threat of variants of concern in Canada,” he said.
Research has shown how the coronavirus spreads through human mobility, which means that the next variant of the virus may not even emerge from China and, even if it did, it could land in Canada from other indirect routes, Bowman said, adding that a more effective measure would be testing wastewater from airplanes and airports to check for the viral load and mutations.
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