Planning a trip over the holidays? Expect airport delays, sudden travel restrictions, experts say

As concerns around the omicron variant grow, infectious diseases expert Dr. Gerald Evans says that now is the time for Canadians to reconsider upcoming plans — particularly if they include international travel.

"What we need to do — all of us — is to reduce the opportunities for transmission to occur," said Evans, chair of the division of infectious diseases at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.

Hidayet Mugjenkar and his family were set to fly to South Africa late last month to visit his ailing parents. They were forced to cancel when the federal government announced a ban on flights entering Canada from several countries in southern Africa.

"I really just wanted to go and see them because I don't know when we'll see them again," he told Cross Country Checkup. "Now, with all this travel ban and with COVID, it's just hard to predict when you'll be able to fly back again."

Following a previous announcement on restrictions for some flights from Africa, the federal government this week announced new testing requirements for those entering the country from outside Canada and the United States. 

Travellers will now be swabbed upon arrival and required to quarantine until they receive a negative result. That's in addition to the existing pre-departure requirement of a negative PCR test within 72 hours of arrival in Canada.

"It's a little bit like déjà vu all over again," Frederic Dimanche, director of the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Ryerson University in Toronto, said, reflecting on travel during the early days of the pandemic.

"We're just starting to understand this, but we don't have much data. So what the governments have been doing is reacting very swiftly — maybe too swiftly — imposing some travel bans."

The U.S. government has also announced that Canadians and other foreign visitors must now provide a negative COVID-19 test taken within 24 hours of departure, regardless of vaccination status, to enter the country as of Monday.

The latest data on omicron suggests that the variant may be more transmissible, but changes in the severity of illness compared with other variants remain unclear.

Still, Evans cautions against international travel as the situation shifts.

"In a few weeks, with omicron already well established on many different continents, we may be looking at the potential for travel restrictions being brought in that are more widespread or perhaps more onerous than what exists at the moment," he said.

Travel bans have largely targeted countries in southern Africa, where scientists sequenced the new variant late last month. Evans notes that countries across Europe, including France and Germany, have seen recent spikes in COVID-19 cases. 

That's a concern echoed by Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, who says some countries have not yet focused their screening to detect omicron.