Random COVID testing returns to Toronto Pearson Airport for fully vaccinated travellers

Unvaccinated and partially vaccinated travellers will still be required to get a test upon arrival into Canada and again on the eighth day of their 14-day quarantine.

Covid testing returns to Pearson airport
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The Toronto Pearson Airport has brought back random testing for ‘fully vaccinated ’ travellers. 

According to CP24,  they said that “the measure was paused by the federal government on June 11 and resumed Tuesday in Toronto, as well as at airports in Vancouver, Calgary, and Montreal.”

However, the process is now a little bit different. City Pulse also said that in the past, travellers’ passports would be marked at random by customs for onsite testing:

Now, travellers who qualify as fully vaccinated will get an email notification within 15 minutes of completing their customs declaration letting them know that they have been selected for the test.

If you happen to receive an email after you clear customs, the message will contain information to help you arrange a test in your area.

“In it [the email], it’ll say, ‘you’ve been chosen’ and you either go to a pharmacy or a company that’s been selected to go to, or a virtual at-home test. You have to do it within 24 hours and get the results back in and then, of course, wait and see if you’re positive or negative,” Martin Firestone, president of Travel Secure Inc., told CP24 on Tuesday morning.

And if you do test positive for COVID-19, you’ll have go into isolation for 10 days from the date of the test result -- even though the isolation period in Ontario following a positive test is five days.

Canada’s minister of transportation, Omar Alghabra claims that by having the random testing return to one of Toronto's major airport, it won't add congestion to the chaos that is already there.

The Toronto Star quoted, "Alghabra said the off-site, mandatory tests are less about stopping the spread of COVID from any individual travellers and more to “understand the broader picture” of the virus and its mutations globally."

Alghabra said, “It is proven over the last year and a bit that these measures are helpful, are necessary, protect lives, and every single life is worth the measures that we're doing."

The rules that take effect today don't change the process for those who are not considered full vaccinated. Unvaccinated and/or partially vaccinated travellers will still be required to get a test upon arrival into Canada and again on the eighth day of their 14-day quarantine.

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  • By Ezra Levant

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