Canada sees spike of COVID infections on European flights

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As the United States takes measures to ban travellers from many European nations, Canada is starting to see a spike in planes carrying COVID-infected passengers from those countries.

Updated on Monday, Health Canada’s list of flights with confirmed COVID-19 infections is showing an increase in flights from the Netherlands, the U.K., and France — nations subject to an order Monday by newly-minted U.S. President Joe Biden which bans visits by non-U.S. citizens from those countries.

Biden’s order extends travel bans imposed by his predecessor, Donald Trump. Brazil, South Africa, and 28 European nations, including the U.K., Ireland, Belgium, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Portugal.

The list of COVID-infected flights landing in Canada includes four from Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Jan. 10 and 17.

Since Jan. 10, 11 flights from Amsterdam arrived in Canada carrying at least one COVID case — two instances of KLM Flight 677 landing in Calgary with between 13 and 16 rows affected by infected passengers.

Seven flights landed in Toronto from London over the past two weeks, hot on the heels of a short-lived travel ban intended to prevent the new B117 “U.K.” coronavirus strain from entering Canada.

That highly-infectious variant is responsible for sickening almost every resident and nearly half of the staff at Roberta Place long-term-care home in Barrie, killing 41 people.

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Canada also saw five flights from Paris, two from Brussels, three from Frankfurt, and one from Lisbon.

Canada also saw 14 rows of a Jan. 20 flight from Port-au-Prince impacted with COVID-19 cases — last week Montreal saw three flights from the Haitian capital listed with “all rows” impacted by infected passengers.

An “all-rows” flight from Jamaica landed in Toronto on Jan. 15.

Since Jan. 10, 137 flights landed in Canada with infected passengers, despite federal rules requiring Canada-bound passengers to present negative COVID-19 tests before boarding.

Of those, 69 landed in Toronto.

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @bryanpassifiume