In 2005, a federal government scientist named Theresa Tam co-authored a revealing study that found Canada had spent $7.5 million on screening air passengers for SARS, and achieved exactly nothing. But more than 15 years later, the government is again implementing an airport screening system — this time for the new Wuhan coronavirus — overseen by the Public Health Agency of Canada that Tam now heads. But Tam’s 2005 study and other evidence call into question whether such measures ever serve much purpose, despite their expense. “Rather than investing in airport screening measures to detect rare infectious diseases, investments should be used to strengthen screening and infection control capacities at points of entry into the healthcare system,” said their paper in the journal Emerging Infectious Disease. Some experts, though, still argue strongly in favour of airport screening.

Source: National Post January 28, 2020 12:00 UTC