Quote:
Originally Posted by fde83
If there are sufficient precautions such as COVID-19 testing before departure or upon arrival,
|
This is something often neglected and misunderstood even on newspapers: there is NO chance to do a reliable COVID testing on borders. If there was, why would we worried?
If there was unlimited capability of doing such a test, we would have solved the pandemic problem without a vaccine: test everyone every 2 weeks, then quarantine for anyone positive, borders closed. How many tests per day are needed in Singapore? In Malaysia? In China? do the math.
1) IGG/IGM testing tells you if someone developed antibodies, that is if he/she had contact with the virus weeks or days before. This is interesting, but does not say anything about whether he/she is presently sick and contagious.
2) The only suitable test is the test that checks the presence of virus, a.k.a. swab test. There are testing machines that allow fast testing in 15 minutes. Abbott (ID NOW, m2000) produces such machines in USA, for single or massive testing. There are several other brands. Then what is the problem? The testing capacity: how many tests per day a country can buy and carry out?
Consider that Abbott announces on their web site, as a major achievement, that they plan to achieve production of 50,000-70,000 tests per day. This is very little for a country as USA, with 300 millions people. The overall testing capacity of USA would not enough to eradicate the virus from Singapore. Just Changi was used to see 60,000,000 passengers per year, that is 160,000 per day. The overall testing capacity of USA would not be enough to test routinely all international passengers of Changi.
In conclusion: it is possible to test only suspects, and in many countries not even them. Too many.
Forget the possibility to test passengers on borders to allow or deny entrance. At best, they can check the temperature.