OTTAWA — The last of Canada’s COVID-19 border restrictions will disappear at the end of this month with the expiry of a cabinet order affecting mandatory vaccinations, testing and quarantine of international travellers.
That expiry also spells the end of insisting travellers use the ArriveCan app to input their vaccine status and test results, though the app will live on as an optional tool for customs and immigration.
It doesn’t yet deal with whether passengers must wear masks on domestic and international trains and planes because that rule is contained in a separate order issued by the minister of transport.
Two senior government sources aware of the decision confirmed the cabinet order maintaining COVID-19 border measures will not be renewed when it expires on Sept. 30.
The sources spoke to The Canadian Press on the condition they not be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly. While the Liberal cabinet did meet Thursday afternoon, cabinet approval is not required to allow the order to expire.
One of the sources said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, before the cabinet meeting took place, signed off on the decision not to renew the rules.
The change means international travellers will no longer have to prove they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Under the current rule, Canadians returning to the country who aren’t vaccinated must show a negative COVID-19 test result before arriving, and undergo further testing after arrival. They also must quarantine for 14 days.
Foreigners who aren’t vaccinated are simply banned from Canada unless they fall into specific categories, such as airline or boat crew members, those who need essential medical treatment, diplomats and temporary foreign workers.
The cabinet order also spells out that vaccinated travellers will be selected for random COVID-19 testing, and requires travellers to submit their vaccine proof and test results electronically.
The only way to do that is through the ArriveCan app.
All of that will end when the clock strikes midnight on Oct. 1.
Tourism Minister Randy Boissonnault would not confirm the decision Thursday afternoon, but he said if the order is allowed to expire, that would also eliminate the only mandatory component for the ArriveCan app.
“So the mandatory piece is the vaccine piece, and because that’s how people prove it through the ArriveCan, that’s how the order is written, from what I remember,” he said on his way into the cabinet meeting.
ArriveCan has morphed into a digitized border arrival tool, and now people flying into certain airports can use it to fill out their customs and immigration form instead of the paper version.
Boissonnault said that is in keeping with the digitization of border forms in a number of countries, including Europe, and long term will make for faster, smoother border experiences.
“If we’re going to want to go from 22 million visitors in 2019, to something closer to 30 million by 2030, we’re going to have to have a digital border,” he said.
The order’s expiration also means the minister of health will no longer be able to quickly bar citizens of specific countries facing COVID-19 outbreaks from coming to Canada. That measure was used to ban people from India and certain African countries at various points, moves criticized by some as racist.
Canada’s COVID-19 border measures have been evolving since the pandemic began in March 2020.
For more than a year, Canada invoked a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all returning Canadians, and for a time required quarantine to be fully or partially completed in specific hotels.
Between March 2020 and August 2021, foreign nationals couldn’t enter Canada period with some exemptions for critical workers including airline crew, health workers, and truck drivers.
In July 2021, once all Canadian adults and teenagers could access vaccines, the government stopped requiring quarantine for fully-vaccinated Canadian travellers.
In August 2021 they opened the border to fully vaccinated Americans, and in September 2021 the border was opened to fully vaccinated citizens from all countries.
Border measures have become heavily politicized, with the Conservatives demanding Trudeau lift them all, and Leader Pierre Poilievre made ending them a key policy in his recent leadership campaign.
Deputy Conservative leader Melissa Lantsman and the party’s Quebec lieutenant, Pierre Paul-Hus, said in a joint statement Wednesday that ending the measures within weeks of Poilievre winning the leadership was convenient.
“Ever since it was introduced, the ArriveCan app has killed jobs, suffocated economies all over the country, and told visitors they weren’t welcome in Canada,” they said. “Along with unscientific vaccine mandates and mandatory random testing, ArriveCan created the longest delays ever seen at Canada’s airports.”
Delays at airports were partially blamed on ArriveCan, as some travellers who struggled to get it to work, or couldn’t or wouldn’t use it, backed up lines. However, the delays have also been blamed on labour shortages affecting everything from airport workers to security and border guards.
Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease specialist, has been arguing against mandatory vaccinations and testing at the border for months. In an interview Thursday he said testing asymptomatic travellers at the border is expensive and not as useful as testing symptomatic people in the community.
He said without testing everyone, the policy won’t prevent further spread of COVID-19.
The government had long pointed to the random testing as a way to screen for the arrival of new variants but Chagla said there are also better and more convenient ways to look for those as well.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 22, 2022.
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
