Dr. Bonnie Henry says she wishes airlines were more transparent in sharing flight manifests
Posted July 30, 2020 7:44 pm.
Last Updated July 30, 2020 11:53 pm.
VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) — The same day temperature screenings became mandatory at major airports in Canada, B.C.’s top doctor says it’s hard to tell how many people have tested positive after flying with someone who has COVID-19.
Re: any #COVID19 cases in #BC directly linked to someone flying with someone who is sick on a plane, Henry says that’s difficult to track because people who’ve tested positive after flying, may have been sick before boarding the flight. #bcpoli @yvrairport @NEWS1130
— Marcella Bernardo (@Bernardo1130) July 30, 2020
Dr. Bonnie Henry says while the risk remains low, people flying into YVR have been testing positive since January and she wishes airlines would make flight manifests more transparent, so it’s easier to find people who may have been exposed.
“It is a low, but very real risk and the more people that you have, the force of infection –we’ve seen this in many different settings– so the more people who are travelling from areas where there’s an illness and are on airplanes, close together, for longer periods of time, the risk increases.”
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Henry adds it’s hard to tell how many travellers have been exposed to COVID-19 by someone else on a plane.
“From China and then Iran and then, many other countries, there have been people who have been sick who have been exposed on an airplane, but they’ve also had other exposures, so it’s very hard to tell which is the exposure that led to their illness,” she says.
“We have had people who’ve arrived ill and who’ve developed illness. They’ve all been on a plane together. They may have been next to somebody who is ill. They may have developed illness once they arrived here, but it’s hard to know if they brought it with them from the country of origin or whether it was acquired on the airplane.”
Henry adds it’s great Ottawa has taken steps to close the Alaska loophole which lets Americans drive through B.C. if they’re headed to that state, but some have just been using that as an excuse to vacation here.