Canada drops coronavirus rules for travelers

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

Traveling to Canada is about to get a lot easier. Starting Oct. 1, the country is dropping all coronavirus entry and travel restrictions. That means visitors will no longer be required to show proof of vaccination, get tested, submit health information through an official online site, report symptoms, isolate or quarantine, or wear a mask on planes or trains.

Rules for cruise travelers are also being lifted, meaning passengers won’t need to test negative before boarding a ship, be vaccinated or use the online public health reporting system. Public health authorities said several factors led to the end of pandemic-era rules, including high vaccination rates; low hospitalization and death rates; new vaccine boosters; and models that indicate the country has passed the peak of infections from the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants.

“Since the start, our Government has taken the necessary steps to keep Canadians safe in the face of a global pandemic,” Marco Mendicino, minister of public safety, said in a statement. “COVID-19 border measures were always meant to be temporary and we are making adjustments based on the current situation because that’s what Canadians expect.”

The country stopped requiring vaccinated travelers to show proof of a negative test in April, but kept the vaccine mandate in place. Visitors could still be selected for testing upon arrival. Canada follows countries around the world that have ended border restrictions. In Europe, for example, destinations including France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Portugal and Germany dropped entry rules earlier this year. The United States still requires international tourists to be vaccinated.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/09/26/canada-drops-covid-restrictions-travel/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wp_main

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No paywall link

I remember last year when the world started dropping the mitigation requirements for travelers (including the U.S. lifting the overseas ban on Nov. 8, 2021) and then Omicron just exploded with an avalanche.

Let's hope the bivalent boosters will help this fall and winter.

[NullTuples]

1. A friendly reminder:

- In Jan/Feb* of this year (2022), 46% of deaths were vaccinated. Vaccines are truly wonders when it comes to preventing serious illness or death from COVID, but people had absorbed the message that if they were vaxxed they didn't have to follow any other precautions. So they ended up overloading the protections with massive exposure by going to restaurants, parties, churches, and so on without masks.

- COVID can still cause Long COVID even if you've had the virus before and shook it off quickly. Long COVID can be disabling.

- Vaccines, even the new bivalent boosters, do not stop transmission! They do go a long way toward preventing serious illness and death, but only if you don't overload those protections by exposing yourself to massive virus loads!

- Masking and social distancing are still needed if you want to guarantee that a) you don't get long COVID and b) you don't unknowingly help spread the virus to someone whose body cannot fight it. It's like driving while texting or driving while drunk or shooting a gun up in the air on New Years - why do something that can endanger other people if you can help it?

- We are still at 4x to 7x weekly deaths from COVID compared to much of 2021, when masks and social distancing were still in effect.

* the last months we have good data for since McConnell & the Senate Republicans have blocked all COVID testing and tracking ever since.

[Zeitghost]

6. "We are still at 4x to 7x weekly deaths from COVID compared to much of 2021"

This is not only untrue, it is so untrue I can't even fathom where it came from.

There is a single ~8 week stretch in June/July of 2021 that had similar to slightly lower averages than we have had since the beginning of April 22 when the decline of the Omicron wave flattened to ~425 deaths/day. Other than that the weekly death rate in 2021 was 2X-8X higher than we have been the last 6 months.

[maxsolomon]

7. "In Jan/Feb* of this year (2022), 46% of deaths were vaccinated."

link?

jan/feb 2022 was the height of Omicron.
what % of those deaths were boosted?
what % had co-morbidities?

[Chakaconcarne]

2. Good, should help speed up border crossings....

They were requiring you enter your COVID information into the ArriveCAN app... Most weren't aware of this app and had to cross into Canada and then immediately back into the US, download the app (if they had service) and submit for a 2nd re-entry attempt.... Ask me how I know.

BTW, the US is doing the same thing... When I came across a month ago, the reader signs at the US border were mentioning you needed to have the information ready in the app, but the app hadn't fully been set up....they didn't require it, but I reckon it's coming.

[Sky Jewels]

3. Yes, we cross the border frequently and were recently surprised by the backup.

I'm guessing it was the ArriveCAN situation. (We had done it ahead of time though.)

[OnlinePoker]

5. And what happened if you didn't have a device to load the app?

I wouldn't feel secure going to an internet cafe and entering personal information.

[maxsolomon]

8. You needed a device somewhere along the line.

there was probably a way around it, but it's kind of moot at this point.

-A successful ArriveCAN user who has a smart phone