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
omicron
Canada’s Health Minister today warned Canadians that travelling outside the country is “risky and unstable.” He also said a formal “do not travel” warning could come later. Speaking to reporters in Ottawa, Jean-Yves Duclos said the Omicron variant around the world is making international travel difficult, and that coming home is increasingly complicated and unpredictable. Duclos said Canadians should be “more vigilant” when travelling outside the country. Omicron hasn’t been a major issue domestically, he said, but “If they think about travelling outside of Canada should be a red, a big red part of their radar screen. It should be flashing, Read more
The government of Canada announced new COVID-19 testing rules for most Canadian airports on Tuesday of last week. Six days later, we still don’t know what’s really happening. The Trudeau government announced at the time that all passengers flying into Canada from destinations other than the United States would have to be tested upon arrival. Officials who said they were worried about the Omicron variant, said travellers will have to isolate while they wait for their results, and that those results might take three days. Those tests are in addition to the requirement that anyone flying to Canada show a 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
