Will Canada Follow Hong Kong With 21 Day Quarantine
 

BC Center for Disease Control just reported that UK variant confirmed on Vancouver Island, and that the two travelers followed all quarantine requirements but did NOT experience symptoms until afterwards.

Because of new variant, Hong Kong announced yesterday 21 day quarantine for all arrivals (see my post on HKG thread).

Will Canada now announce 21 day quarantine to get ahead of the new variant and the delayed gestation of symptoms?

Probably, it sounds like something stupid our government would copy instead of on-arrival testing and/or banning transit pax

Never mind 80% of people would still just walk right in and be exempt.

And 19 of the other 20% would ignore it.

Do you have a link to the details on the two traveler story? I have seen press coverage of other BC and wider Canada cases of the more transmissible variant but not this two traveler case you mention.

THE UK's PHE released the attached today which gives some early comparative analysis working back from PCR datasets: https://assets.publishing.service.go...ng_2_FINAL.pdf
It doesn't talk to incubation though.

In very broad terms, my working assumption (and from what I've read so far), for the 'new' spike efficiency development of the virus, was that the 'new' virus would be more transmissible by loading-up faster. It then followed that development of symptoms could be faster and with potentially fewer asymptomatics. Bizarrely, I'd been following daily datasets from Western Cape, ZA and a couple of South East UK authorities before the news on N501Y; and couldn't satisfactorily account for the relatively rapid upticks in cases set against local knowledge.
The current explanation of a broadly 50% higher transmissibility (on the UK one) makes a deal of sense set against the daily infection case data; that would assume the 'normal' 4 to 6 days delay. So back-fitting the storylines and material around the new strains to my previous observations adds up.

I haven't seen anything (prior to the above post) implying or evidencing a symptom development delay. I was already slightly curious over what drove the Hong Kong switch to 21 days; specifically was that based on some evidence or was it mainly about risk-aversion?
But, for now at least, looking to follow through on any emerging evidence .... especially any pointing to a longer incubation curve or indicator of "delayed gestation" in these new variants.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/there-are-defi...says-1.5246925

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/ea...om%20spreading.

You seem quite knowledgeable, be interested to hear more what you think?

HK found 2 travellers tested positive on day 19 of returning. HK have initially released those on quarantine on day 14 but require a test on day 19. But this was amended to 21 days quarantine instead.

One of them from U.K but I forget whether this guy is having the new strain or not.

these two were tested on day 12 and results show negative.

most interesting, and unfortunately the evolving nature of what you lay out gets lost in the media and state rush to action.

I work in the borders / transportation sphere, and we have for as long as I can remember been subject to the "theatre of security" at our frontiers.

Worse, and I just saw this today here in Canada with the Quebec First Minister blaming federal government for absolutely calamitous situation in the province by saying fault of national government to keep out new variant, even though NO new variant yet detected in Quebec.

C-19 has renewed with gusto the ancient political process of "othering" to deflect for malfeasance and negligence at home.

Nah! I'm some person on the internet, I bring some knowledge but at heart I am about risk understanding and mitigation.
It so happens I deal quite a lot with the world of Research, I also work alongside and with great forecast/modellers and have had a ringside seat now and then to UN, US, UK and EU politics. The emergence of this pandemic and the threads of the reaction and responses and ongoing mitigation efforts have therefore fallen into my wheelhouse; and frequently it has been quite exasperating!
Certainly in the UK, and I think europewide, the medical side of the science and the forecasting/modelling aspects of the science have not joined up well. Masks was an early case in point. Anyway, the risks and responses were not well elaborated by the scientists. Anyway, there we are. And here for the most part we still are.
I simply throw my 2 cents in from time to time.

So back to the links you kindly provided, and also another input below your response (the Hong Kong examples).
To me, these cases each read like they are consistent with the current known incubation of Covid-19. Nothing there I see strongly pushes to the new variant and it showing longer incubation. It may turn out different and be a thing, but right from those articles and others I've looked at, now it feels it remains a possibility not a probability.

Also, I'm super cautious when I read of two travellers as it would be normal for one to be infected first and then later transmit to the second (who can thus develop symptoms well over 14 days from the original infection event). Not saying it did happen here, but I need a high bar cleared to rule that out.
Similarly, the current data (again, care on which datasets to trust) has individual edge cases of over 14 days for incubation which given the volumes of Hong Kong quarantiners may well come into play. It therefore makes some sense in Hong Kong's situation of near Nil local cases to make the extra effort to keep out the 2 or 3 they'd miss at 14 days. Risk mitigation at play.

Back to the new variant. The current risk to manage in the UK and ZA is the health sector's capacity. I'm not sure either country has re-calibrated their counter-measures quickly enough or deeply enough to reel in the rate of transmission. Risk understanding (at the political level) at play.
Now, in my world, this faster spreading virus would be a risk to expect to play out during the pandemic (way before the errant mutations occurred or were detected); and hence better mitigations should have already been ready-to-go. In fact, better still, the regular mitigations should have been strong enough to absorb this. They aren't!
Same has very likely already played out, with no fanfare, in other countries and could again.

In the absence of a reliable and strong compliance mechanism, whether the period is 14 days or 21 days, it does not matter.

The term Quarantine is strong and decisive. When used by the Canadian government, it is intended to reassure and to convey the message that the government is on top of the crisis, even when it has been missing in action for some time.
The sad reality is that Canada does not quarantine: It has a voluntary self isolation period that far too many people have not fully complied with. There has been little if any supervision and minimal enforcement effort. Healthcare is a provincial responsibility and as much as the provinces have expressed their concern, two provinces in particular, Quebec and Ontario are not exactly doing a stellar job when it comes to contact tracing and testing.

Today, the federal government announced its intent to do more follow up. Whoop dee do. Non compliant people will continue to be non compliant. Until some people are caught and made an example of, people will not listen. It's a joke to some. More effective will be the federal government requirement of all travelers to have a negative Covid19 test within 72 hours of travel. Although, to be effective, there should be a requirement for 2 negative tests, 10 days apart..

I was able to catch part of the federal press conference while listening to the press conference from the UK announcing more tier changes, which was equally annoying. In between patting themselves on their backs and repeatedly stating how strict Canada's regulations were, not much was said, aside from the announcement of the new testing requirement. If Canada was truly serious, it would initiate measures like Thailand has of isolation at an approved facility and multiple tests. Maybe then people would get the message and postpone their selfish leisure trip to Cancun etc.

Even more effective than an additional isolation period would be a non essential travel leisure destination Covid 19 tax to cover the costs of screening air travelers and of staffing airports to deal with the travelers. $500- $1000 per ticket, might send a message. There would be no public sympathy for the people who would complain, although the FT forum would explode with indignation. After the recent reports of people frolicking in the Mexican pool with no social distancing, and of politicians enjoying the sun, the public mood is one of an expectation of more decisive action.

How correct you are!

And yes lots of indignation which you will recall from backlash I received from my comments on the Air Canada/Aeroplan thread saying pretty much the same thing. The circumstances that HKG has moved ahead on expanding its quarantine requirements is based on solid and substantial on the ground implementation - no messing about with pretty please do your civic duty we generally get from Western leaders.

The reality is that the media is equally complicit in self-promoting their own offerings, and allowing politicians to literally get away with negligent homicide.

I have posted elsewhere the US Mortality ratio relative to East Asia/South Pacific which demonstrates an abysmal performance with factors running from 25X for Australia, all the way upto +3,000X for Taiwan. As Canada NOT that far behind the U.S. (factor down 2X-3X) and good chunks of the EU running similar to the U.S. (and especially Italy where my family is from) NOBODY in the political world, NOR the media wish to discuss what is possible with good public policy and a willingness in the public to achieve good outcomes.

And let's NOT forget all those frequent travelers who want airlines to be subsidized so ultimately they can get that cheap Mexican beach vacation paid for in part by future taxpayer dollars.

The sadder reality is the amount of exemptions granted, and the ease of which one can be granted.

Just like Quarantine has a strong message (yet meaningless as you say) - the bigger problem here is that non-essential sounds just as strong, and is far more meaningless when 80% of arrivals are "essential" by simply presenting a letter from their boss that their trip to a sales meeting was essential to the business.

Ask people on the street what they think "essential" means, and the misinformation is just as bad as the meaning of "quarantine"

Just wondering where the idea comes from that there is little or no supervision on people returning to Canada - honest question, not trying to belittle your statement and I don't work for the government of Canada, though I wish I was right now with stable and guaranteed income. :)

My son and I came back from Europe mid-November visiting family, especially my mother who has been waiting for us since March since that trip got cancelled and she is not getting younger.

Upon returning we filled in a form online as well as on the plane, both were printed out and passed on to Immigration at YVR.
We both live in the same household and were called 3 different times during our 2 weeks in "quarantine" which we had no problem with taking.

2 calls came from Service Canada during our first and second week and one call came from the RCMP approximately on day 10. I missed one call from Service Canada because I was upstairs and didn't hear the phone. She left a message to please answer the next call so that they could make sure we were home. She did call about 2 hours later again and we talked.

It seemed to me that they were quite diligent with following up and I have heard from others who had a personal visit from the RCMP because they couldn't be reached by phone.
Maybe we were just "lucky" and an exception but it does look like they are doing their best to follow up.

There is no way of bullet proofing this situation unless Canada does what China, New Zealand or Australia are doing and with the required test upon return to Canada coming soon, it will add another layer of protection but it won't be 100%, just have a look at what is happening in Thailand despite their current very strict entry rules.

I am not saying one or the other way is right or wrong but the government can only do so much and we as adults do have resonsibility as well. There is no way we'll be able to control everyone and everything unless we want to change to a system as can be found in a country like China.

People partying in Mexico and then returning to Canada not keeping quarantine requirements is a problem but with having to get tested before returning will for sure put off many people from going overseas, especially if testing is required in the country being visited, which is becoming more and more the norm, as well as returning which can easily add testing costs of over $ 400 per person.

Unfortunately, if your statement of adults acting with responsibility were true & adhered to, then the mortality rate in North America and Europe would resemble East Asia / South Pacific.

For example, Hong Kong has repeatedly acted with conviction and pre-emptively, despite having only +/- 150 deaths in a country with 7.5 mil. pop. By comparison, the Province of Quebec (where I have close family) with similar population to HKG is running +8,100 deaths. These facts speak for themselves - what HKG is doing appears to be working - Quebec NOT!

Sorry, but I must also disagree with you advancing the fallacy that we need to be like China - without repeating my detailed posts on this Forum that identify the mortality rates in East Asia/ South Pacific as compared to the US (and I purposely leave out China), much more can be done in the West as has been done in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia & New Zealand.

A medical professional friend of mine in the US calls what is going on "negligent homicide", when similarly wealthy countries are achieving lower mortality rates in the range of 25X-3,300X less than the U.S.. Canada only 2-3X lower than U.S., while Italy and U.K. inching up close too. The reason I raised this Thread was to ask the question? Will other countries follow in the face of what is clearly success elsewhere.

The views by Transpacificflyer are absolutely correct, and respectfully, let's NOT make excuses for weak politicians who are unable to demonstrate the back-bone necessary to lead the community away from the currently failing path.

It's a good question and one of the reasons I left BC out of my reference. The smaller the number of pax involved, the easier it is to follow up. YVR has about 1/3 the international arrivals of YYZ (using most recent traffic report). In June, the compliance activity was transferred from BC to the federal government because of the need for more resources.
There are not enough resources to effectively follow up on 150,000+ international pax expected to arrive at YYZ in December.(And this excludes transborder.)
Although most people are responsible, there is a core group of people who will not be compliant. Unfortunately, the only way to pick up non compliance is if there is surveillance.
The Quebec health minister is beside himself because of what happened with spring break earlier this year. It's a catastrophe from which Quebec never recovered. What's driving Quebec and Ontario now is the current UK experience, which has literally overwhelmed the London NHS. The provincial healthcare systems are at their breaking point and they are not well positioned to respond to a more infectious disease. Remember that Canada's Covid19 virus was primarily imported through European travel and Canadians exposed to infected Europeans and Americans at sun destinations. They don't want a repeat of history.

Respectfully, we cannot leave British Columbia out of this discussion.

Between CX & AC running 6x/week from YVR, or at least what schedule shows for early January.

So some facts are in order:

Hong Kong has 50% more population than B.C

B.C. (882) has 600% more COVID deaths than Hong Kong (143)

This ugly math demands attention in Ottawa and the provincial capital in Victoria as what is happening here is NOT working, at least by this simple comparison. But if you listen to local media, you would think we are the paragons of virtuous behaviour.

If 21 days works for HKG, my question is what should other less successful governments do?

And ignoring the above math is NOT an option for a serious response.