Redvers man worried over lack of COVID-19 communication at airport

Some people returning to Saskatchewan from Mexico aren’t too impressed with the communication they’re getting from the provincial government and customs agents at the Regina airport.

Steven Bedecs said it has hardly been there.

He and his wife returned from Cabo San Lucas on Sunday on Sunwing flight WG496; it was one of the two returning flights from Mexico from which the province required all passengers aboard to self-isolate as soon as they arrived home.

The province announced the news Wednesday afternoon.

Bedecs said he first learned of the self-isolation requirement through 980 CJME late on Wednesday.

He said first hearing about it through the media was shocking. In his mind, such communication is too late, and health authorities can do better.

As of 11 a.m. Thursday, he and his wife had yet to hear anything regarding testing for COVID-19 or of self-isolation from the province.

“With the other couple in our hometown (arriving from Cancun, also on a Sunwing flight), they had never been contacted either over the last two days. And we still haven’t heard anything,” he said.

Bedecs and his wife are now self-isolating at home in Redvers.

He says he wants the province to communicate with Canadians abroad first, potentially before they leave their vacation spots, to tell them they’ll be required to self-isolate when they land.

He’s also concerned by the lack of urgency communicated to him by Canada Border Service agents at the Regina airport.

“They just more or less told us that they were supposed to hand these papers out (instructions for self-monitoring for virus symptoms) and that’s about it,” Bedecs said.

As for the possible need to self-isolate, Bedecs said the CBSA officer said he could do so if he wanted to.

“He did not urge us at all to do that,” he said.

In Bedecs’ view, the CBSA is another opportunity for prompt communication with the public to happen.

An emailed statement from the CBSA last week said its agents are already ramping up their efforts to communicate the severity of COVID-19 to travellers.

Some of those measures include more signage, “health screening questions to identify travellers of concern, providing travellers of concern a mask kit consisting of a surgical mask and one-page instructions on how to use a surgical mask, instructions for travellers of concern to monitor themselves for symptoms, to self-isolate at home for 14 days, and to contact local public health of their jurisdiction if they develop symptoms in the next 14 days.”

The statement also said CBSA officers are supposed to identity and intercept “travellers who have been in other affected areas or locations, such as cruise ships, in order to ensure that they are screened in accordance with enhanced measures determined by (the Public Health Agency of Canada).”

The province said it’s not considering punishment for people who aren’t self-isolating when they should.