Travellers must be fully vaccinated, have had COVID-19 test before entering Canada
While the Canadian government has implemented strong measures to ensure fully vaccinated foreign travellers coming into Canada won’t be a significant source of COVID-19 spread, those protections will certainly not eliminate the risk, medical experts say.
“Certainly the optics aren’t ideal, as we are in a fourth wave and cases continue to climb across the country,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist and member of Ontario’s COVID-19 vaccine task force.
Under the measures, travellers must be fully vaccinated with a Canadian-approved vaccine at least 14 days prior to arriving and have received a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of their scheduled flight or their arrival at a land border crossing — requirements that, while not perfect, are “very very good” at ensuring people coming don’t have COVID-19, Bogoch said.
“It’s not foolproof, it’s not a hermetically sealed border, we’ll still have cases of COVID introduced. It’s just going to be fewer than if we had no protection whatsoever,” he said.
On Tuesday, Canada opened its borders to fully vaccinated non-essential foreign travellers from across the globe, allowing them to skip the 14-day quarantine requirement. Canada is currently in the midst of a fourth wave of COVID-19 fuelled by the delta variant. However, most of the country’s cases and hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated.
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Source: CBC News
