The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has confirmed that, as of September 7, all fully vaccinated foreigners will be eligible to travel to Canada, despite several provincial governments installing vaccine passports over the much-feared fourth wave of COVID-19.
Under the fully vaccinated traveller exemption, all foreigners are now considered exempt from travel restrictions if they are legally eligible to enter Canada, have no signs or symptoms of COVID-19, have received two doses of an approved vaccine, and have received those doses at least 14 days before their entry.
The government will accept the four most prevelant vaccines, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson, as well as any combination of these vaccines, so long as a recipient has received two doses. However, the government will not consider immunity from natural infection or conventional vaccines.
“If you have recovered from COVID-19, you still need a full series of an accepted COVID-19 vaccine or combination of accepted vaccines,” the Liberal Government writes. “If you’ve only had one dose of an accepted vaccine other than Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), you don’t qualify for the fully vaccinated traveller exemption.”
Additionally, all foreigners who qualify for the fully vaccinated traveller exemption neither must provide Day-8 testing to show that they are COVID free while in the country nor quarantine once they have arrived, as was previously the standard.
This change comes just as Alberta announces that it needs to reimpose mask mandates, liquor curfews, and offers a $100 bribe for Albertans to get vaccinated in response to rising case numbers.
According to the CBSA, “While cases are currently increasing in Canada, the illness severity and hospitalization rates remain manageable as Canada’s vaccination rates continue to rise.”
Moreover, fully vaccinated individuals can still experience “breakthrough infections” and reinfect others. So why vaccination status is a prerequisite for foreigners visiting when Canada supposedly has too many cases to handle to begin with is a mystery.
Many news outlets have claimed that a healthcare collapse is on the horizon.
In response to concerns over this development, Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam says that travellers will have to take a pre-arrival test and jump through some minor hoops, but otherwise should be okay if they are vaccinated.
“With all these layers at play, this is why the continuation of the planned easing is taking place,” Tam said. “Should there be any signals of an increase [in the] positivity rate, we can take further measures.”
Tam made these comments on Friday, the same day she warned Canadians that the country could have 15,000 daily cases by October in a public health briefing.
