Ahead of the forthcoming holiday season, the latest restrictions seek to minimize the effects of the deadly disease.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday announced a revised series of Covid-19 regulations for travellers preparing to enter the country to counter the danger faced by new and more infectious strains of the new coronavirus. Canada is facing a real problem with new versions of Covid-19,” Prime Minister Trudeau said at a press conference.” “That’s why we need extra measures to be taken.”
The Trudeau administration announced a slew of stringent new steps to clamp down on the transmission of the coronavirus pandemic, from halting flights to a variety of common destinations, to making Covid PCR checks obligatory upon entry.
What are the latest travel restrictions announced by PM Trudeau of Canada?
Prime Minister Trudeau announced that all flights to the Caribbean and Mexico from April 30 would be suspended by the country’s major carriers, Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing, and Air Transat.
Trudeau said at a press conference on Friday that the airlines are in the process of “making arrangements with customers who are currently traveling in these regions to organize their return flights.”
In addition, all international flights will only be allowed to land from next week onwards in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto. Compulsory Covid-19 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests will also have to be taken by travellers arriving in the country. They will be required to quarantine at their own expense in a government-approved hotel while awaiting their results.
“Travelers will then have to wait for up to three days at an approved hotel for their test results, at their own expense, which is expected to be more than 2,000 Canadian dollars,” Trudeau said. This hotel cost would cover a private PCR exam, food expense and security.
Many with negative test results will be able to quarantine at home “under significantly increased surveillance and enforcement.” Screening officers will visit the
quarantine locations of travelers and maintain contact, confirm identification and confirm that travelers are at the quarantine position they identified upon entry into Canada.
What led to these new restrictions?
The recent announcement by Trudeau follows weeks of furore in the provinces of Canada, where local authorities have urged the Prime Minister and his administration to introduce more stringent travel regulations to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.
According to recent figures from the Canada Border Services Department, the mandatory 14-day quarantine has not been met by more than 6.3 million travellers who have reached the world since the start of the pandemic, Global News stated.
What kind of travel is allowed and what is not?
The bulk of permitted travel is reserved solely for nationals of Canada and permanent residents. Foreign nationals will be able to enter only if they are protected staff, asylum seekers or if, for humanitarian purposes, they have applied to fly to the region.
All international commercial passenger flights will be funneled to four Canadian airports as of midnight (11:59 PM EST) on Feb. 3, 2021: Montréal-Trudeau International Airport, Toronto Pearson International Airport, Calgary International Airport, and Vancouver International Airport. The states which had been exempted from travel restrictions before can now travel to Canada only through these 4 airports, through scheduled passenger flights.
Canada has so far recorded 778,972 cases, 20,032 deaths and 705,659 recoveries as of Jan. 31, 2021. However, it is now facing a second wave of coronavirus, which threatens to overwhelm some hospitals
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