Epidemiologists say if Canada wants to contain the number of COVID-19 cases and variants of concern, there needs to be stricter quarantine measures for travellers.
Data supplied to The Canadian Press by the Public Health Agency of Canada shows since February 22nd, more than two-thousand people returning to Canada have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than a quarter of them were infected with a variant of concern.
Ottawa has required a two-week quarantine for international arrivals since March of last year, but it's only been two months that air travellers are required to spend three days of that in a quarantine hotel.
Susanne Gulliver, an epidemiologist at Newfoundland's NewLab Clinical Research, says the entire quarantine period should be supervised, noting if someone gets sick in quarantine they can be monitored to ensure they get medical help if they need it.
She points to the Atlantic bubble as a place where restricting entry -- even to Canadians from other provinces -- worked well because they were accompanied by quick government action to lock things down if an outbreak occurred.