We’re big believers in digging deeper to get stories and we wanted to find out if increased flying means increased COVID cases and so we took a deep dive into data for passengers and case counts across a few countries. After some significant research we were able to identify cause and effect trends in Canada. The Canadian government provides transparent information on both passengers arrivals and flights with potential exposure to COVID-19.
Here’s What We Learned
By combining recently released Canadian federal government statistics from multiple agencies, we were able to determine that increased flying means increased COVID cases. Although we have to stress, there are no reports of anyone on board these flights having contacted the Coronavirus while flying, we can confirm that these flights had a passenger or passengers on board which later tested positive for COVID-19.
According to recently released statistics from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), over 91,000 travellers entered Canada for the period of June 29 to July 12. This shows a strong uptick in international flights from previous months. However coinciding with this, contact tracers also confirm that passengers aboard 17 international flights and 14 domestic ones, may have been exposed to the virus.
According to a government website, passengers seated near the affected rows, as with all arriving international passengers, should self-isolate for 14 days and call local health officials if they experience any symptoms. It should also be stressed that there is no published evidence of anyone on those flights being infected while flying, these flights simply contained passengers who tested positive for the virus and therefore may have spread it. In the end, increased flying means increased COVID cases as people travel from hot spots such as the US to Canada, but it doesn’t necessarily mean flying is dangerous or the here has been any on board spread while flying.
