Even though the U.S. and Canada are going through another Covid wave due to the Delta variant and the U.S. is lagging way behind Canada in vaccinations, our illustrious leader, PM Photo Op, has decided to open our borders to full vaccinated Americans starting August 9th.
WTF? U.S. Covid numbers are going through the roof, and we are opening the border? I do understand and sympathize with the needs of the Tourism and Hospitality Industry to get back to business and that means U.S. tourists now and Europeans in September, but with so many still not fully vaccinated here, why open the borders? Get us to Herd Immunity and then do it, is that really a hard concept and is that not what all the science says we need to do to get back to normal?
What further pisses me off so much is we announced the opening of the Border to fully vaccinated Americans on July 19 expecting the U.S. to do similar about their side of the border. Instead everyone got blindsided by the Biden administration and the border remains closed to fully vaccinated Canadians. Their reasoning is that currently the risk too high given low vaccination rates and the Delta variant to open the border to fully vaccinated Canadians. In other words the U.S. is having a raging spread of Covid and their population is not doing what it needs and getting vaccinated( as of July 28, 2021 49.8 % of Americans are fully vaccinated vs. 57.6% of Canadians) .
There is some hypocrisy in the fact the U.S. keeps their borders closed to prevent spread from Canadians, but at the same time feel it is okay with Americans travelling to Canada and potentially spreading Covid. I was under the impression from PM Photo Op’s news conferences that it was a coordinated effort by both countries as to opening the border that is how officials made it sound. Former U.S. Ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman, described that Canada would not have announced its loosening of border measures if the U.S. had been uncomfortable with it. Really?
One concern I have with opening the borders is with proof of vaccination. The government has set up a website that guides the process for proving vaccination and these requirements can be found at https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid/travel-restrictions/covid-vaccinated-travellers-entering-canada#proof. When reading through them and what is required for proof, like a receipt, pdf, jpeg for instance, it seems to me that people might not always be honest about their status. Even here with the little paper record that I got when I got vaccinated it has a date and someone’s scribble on it, is not really official proof. I would not really consider that proof and in my opinion if Vaccination proof is not something official from government or regulatory health body then can’t rely on it? Is it possible for an unvaccinated person to falsify to gain entry? Yes, looking at what Canada will accept as proof and no mention of verification?
In one of the reasons the U.S. decided to keep the border closed was the fact of there is no procedure or method to confirm if a person from Canada or the EU has been full vaccinated. You mean that the U.S. is taking a common sense approach and wants some form of official vaccination form, not some hand written card signed by anyone? That only makes perfect sense.
Entrants must do a test 72 hours prior to entry but imagine someone unvaccinated, manages to upload falsified vaccinations records, does the test and passes, but just prior to entry gets the delta variant or gets the variant up here and spreads it all over while travelling Canada. I realize this is probably the worst case scenario, but there is an old saying, “plan for the worst, hope for the best”.
I strongly believe that Canada, the UK and EU all came under some pressure from the U.S. administration and their respective Travel and Hospitality sectors to open travel for Americans and I believe PM Photo Op and cabinet knew the U.S. was not going to reciprocate. The U.K. opened it’s borders to U.S. travelers who are fully vaccinated, but did not do that for Canada, yet Canada has a higher vaccination rate. So is the decision being made based on science or is it being decided at a more political level. I would think it is more that latter.
Our PM and his advisors are still muddling through the process and a lot of the time like in this case, their logic seems rather illogical. Again they are politicizing the Virus, ignoring the science and by doing so are prolonging that which so many of us are sick of.
Note: No blog till August 13th taking a holiday.
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