The Justin Trudeau government today will announce tougher testing rules and other travel restrictions. The Canadian Prime Minister spoke with provincial premiers on Tuesday night, and multiple sources report that tougher rules are coming to help battle the Omicron variant of COVID-19. The Toronto Star says tougher rules “include requiring Canadians who do travel abroad to once again produce negative PCR tests upon return, even for short trips outside the country of 72 hours or less — a condition that was briefly lifted before the onset of the omicron variant.” CTV News reports that the government also will begin requiring Read more
COVID testing
More than a week after the Canadian government announced increased testing at Canadian airports, they’re only halfway to the final target. Worried about the discovery of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the federal government on November 30 announced that all passengers arriving at Canadian airports from destinations other than Canada and the U.S. would need to be tested. Exactly how testing would work was unclear, and it’s been slow to roll out. Canadian Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos on Friday conceded that Canada’s airport testing, which is the responsibility of the federal government, is nowhere near its final target. Duclos said Read more
There’s a good deal of confusion surrounding new U.S. travel rules. Air Canada says it has a solution. Air Canada has announced a series of improvements for customers to meet new U.S. government entry requirements. In partnership with Switch Health, a Canadian-based health care company, Air Canada confirms ample supply of antigen test kits available for purchase. The self-administered antigen test will allow customers to conveniently meet new U.S. government entry requirements that travellers present a negative COVID-19 test taken not more than one day prior to departure. The test result takes about 15 minutes to complete. The self-administered test Read more
New rules for anyone flying to the United States begin in a few hours. The U.S. says that passengers on any flights that depart for the U.S. after Monday, December 6 at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time (which could be interpreted as 9:01 p.m. December 5, today, for flights departing in the Pacific time zone) must show a negative COVID-19 test taken either the day of their flight or the day before. That goes for doubly vaccinated travellers, as well. Contrary to some published reports, it’s not a 24-hour window. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site says anyone flying Read more
I like to give folks the benefit of the doubt. But I really am wondering who’s in charge in Ottawa these days. If you read today’s Globe and Mail, you’ll find a startling story in which federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos warns Canadians flying home from any country other than the U.S. that they have to isolate while they await the results of the Trudeau government’s new requirement for on-arrival COVID testing. He’s been saying that for days, so nothing unusual there. But the Globe story goes on to say that “neither he (Duclos) nor Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Read more
