Article content continued

“Honestly, we expected there to be far more strict guidelines when you admit you were heavily exposed in a pretty confined area,” said Bradbury. “To go from complete isolation in your cabin on the ship to all of a sudden to just be out in the general population … There needs to be some kind of tracking system.”

P.E.I. reported last week that a woman who had been on another cruise ship flew to Toronto and stayed at a hotel there before flying on to Moncton March 9, on WestJet Flight 3440. New Brunswick’s chief medical officer of health warned anyone on the flight to stay in isolation and monitor their symptoms. But there is no indication public health proactively contacted the passengers. Nor has there been any official notice to Toronto residents who may have encountered the woman.

Our staff would counsel the person, try to understand the barriers to isolation and mitigate the barriers

Toronto public health will follow up on contacts with an infected person if notified of any by counterparts in another province, spokeswoman Dr. Lisa Berger said by email. Her office did not respond when asked if it had received such notification.

Toronto was the first and is one of the hardest-hit cities in Canada. Contact tracing is still an important part of the public health department’s response to COVID-19, Berger said.

But while places like Singapore and Taiwan have recruited police officers and are using cell-phone technology and even new cell-phone apps to trace contacts, the effort in Canada seems more constrained.

Toronto’s department prioritizes notifying close household contacts and those in health-care settings and places with vulnerable people, “followed by other close contacts and all other contacts,” said Berger.