The government of Canada advised Canadians to avoid travelling abroad in the upcoming holiday season. During a press conference, Canada’s health minister, Jean-Yves Duclos, announced that the government had reinstated the travel advisory warning keeping away Canadians from travelling abroad for non-essential reasons. In addition, Duclos said that the government is working on increasing their testing numbers at Canada’s ports of entry.
On Tuesday, December 14, prime minister Justin Trudeau had a discussion with Canada’s provincial and territorial premiers regarding various measures, including travel and public health measures, to address the pandemic; however, no certain decision has been made yet.
After the cabinet meeting on December 14, the federal Health Minister, Jean-Yves Duclos had suggested that the travel advisory (similar to the one, which was lifted on October 21) urging Canadians to avoid travelling abroad without any essential reason is going back in place.
In addition, Duclos said, “We are concerned that Canadians will be stranded abroad because of the rapidly evolving measures that other countries may put in place, and also because of the significant risk of catching this variant, this virus while travelling abroad.”
The first measure that Canada implemented to contain the spread of Omicron (a new variant of COVID) is putting stricter restrictions on 10 African countries, where the first few cases were confirmed. The list of these 10 African countries includes Egypt, Lesotho, Nigeria, Botswana, South Africa, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, and Nigeria. The government of Canada announced that any foreign nationals who have travelled to any of these 10 African countries within the last 14 days are not allowed to enter the Canadian borders.
Furthermore, all foreign nationals who are arriving from countries (excluding the U.S.) are required to take a COVID test on arrival, and they have to isolate themselves until they receive the test results. Travellers with a negative result will be released from quarantine; on the other hand, travellers with a positive test report will require to quarantine themselves for additional ten days.
All Canadian provinces have started implementing increased restrictions over the past few days. On December 14, the province of Ontario made an announcement about making stricter measures in long-term care homes. Quebec, on the same day, has also asked employers in the province to reinstate remote work until any further notice.
Currently, Canada is reporting more than 4,000 COVID-19 cases in a day on average, against a number of 3,000 cases over the previous weeks. By December 15, the latest number of Omicron cases in Canada is around 256. In addition, all these reported cases are either mild or asymptomatic.
