Re the testing, I believe that Air Canada and Westjet started testing in YYZ and a few other airports in September in an attempt to show the government that the risk is low to open borders (but I still think that we need to be concerned about Americans, especially as I am seeing several refusing to follow rules whilst outside their country, sorry to say.)
In Germany over the summer, every airport had at least one testing facility as I described, plus most major train stations, plus every Autobahn with a cross border had a testing facility at a rest stop just inside the border. In the first week, the 2 centres in Frankfurt Airport tested over 40,000 people with I believe 11 positives. ELEVEN out of 40,000..... The fear was that the tests are just being wasted as the virus is not that prevalent, even amongst returning travellers or arrivals from high risk areas. In fact, if one has symptoms, one cannot use these test centres but has to go to a medical test centre.
That is one reason why case numbers rose - people with no symptoms were getting tested for free at all these easy, quick test centres, and there were positives. There is debate if the tests are too sensitive, or find 'old' virus, and therefore case counts should not be the main measure anymore. (We never knew for example any other illness how many people were positive each day)
Edited to add: year to date, Germany, Austria and Portugal have had LESS deaths in 2020 than in previous years. 2017/2018 was an especially bad flu year in many areas, and the deaths that year are much higher than this year (but not only those years)
This article explains a bit more the general trend in western Europe - rising cases, but not rising deaths, and health care not overwhelmed.
https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...9-wave-a-dffa14d7-aab3-457c-9258-570f98b80fd6
I don't want to sound like a 'COVID denier', etc, but the reality is that the extreme measures to control the virus don't seem to have a better outcome. The DACH countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and unofficially FL ie Liechenstein) have had great outcomes, with very minimal restrictions. Germany is the most restrictive, but even then not very severe. For example, for 10 days Munich is requiring masks in the pedestrian zone and the (outdoor) food market from 0900-2300hrs but already the cases per 100,000 are dropping. Compare that to the Anglo Saxonic countries which are still having lockdowns, or extreme measures, and they aren't doing any better.
This week is especially evident as 'Koa Wiesn' which is Bavarian for 'no Oktoberfest'. Sure, we don't miss the hoardes of drunken, vomiting tourists, but the streets are empty, shops and restaurants have closed down, and the two peak weeks of sales for many shops are very quiet (it's also 'shopping weeks') The question becomes did we do too much? That is what the epidemiologist meant (and I didn't provoke him; it was a group of mostly Swiss and German and a few southern Europeans, and he was obviously very fed up with the extreme measures taken globally vs the perceived risk of the virus. Even Drosten, the most likely considered top expert of SARS as well as COVID, has mixed feelings in what he has been stating publically.
For your benefit: I was at a resort a short while ago and the next table was full of wealthy Germans (was a high end resort, which was hosting a convention, was full, and all meeting rooms were full too, albeit not in Germany) The head of the table said that their business travel had returned to full levels, and that they were travelling successfully. Except for one employee - they had managed to get him an entry exemption, but then he was told that his quarantine plan was not sufficient, and was put in government quarantine. The quarantine and the challenges meant that the company decided to cancel a contract worth 'millions'. I'll let you guess the country which lost their business....