(Ottawa) To prevent the new Omicron variant from causing an uncontrollable surge in COVID-19 cases across the country in the coming days, the Trudeau government is seriously considering closing the border again to all foreign travelers making non-essential trips .
This change of direction is deemed necessary in the current health context and could be imposed in the coming days, according to information obtained by Press from trusted sources.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet ministers on Tuesday received the latest projections from the Chief Administrator of the Public Health Agency of Canada, the DD Theresa Tam. And these new projections are staggering, we explained.
“We will essentially return to the same closure of borders for foreigners that prevailed in March 2020. This will again affect foreign tourism,” said a government source.
Trudeau called his provincial counterparts to a conference call on Tuesday evening to brief them on his government’s intentions. In the past, the provinces have called almost in unison for a tightening of border measures.
The Trudeau government is expected to take stock of the situation on Wednesday. It is also expected to publish a notice formally urging Canadians not to take non-essential travel abroad, as it did before the notice was lifted in October.
In an interview with CTV which will be broadcast on Sunday, Justin Trudeau made it clear that the Omicron variant is of great concern to him.
“The Omicron variant is scary, and it’s the last thing you need – to have to worry, again, about another wave,” Trudeau said in this interview.
“But if we keep getting vaccinated and people get their booster doses, get children vaccinated and continue to follow public health rules, we’re going to get through this winter and have a much better summer,” he added.
In her economic and financial update she presented on Tuesday, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland set aside $ 4.5 billion to fund various measures to take on Omicron.
Since the emergence of the Omicron variant three weeks ago, ministers in the Trudeau government have announced a series of border measures in hopes of curbing its spread. However, these measures are insufficient. The variant quickly made its appearance in the country and it was only a matter of days before it became the dominant variant, supplanting the Delta variant.
Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos has spent the last few days issuing warnings to Canadians who plan to travel abroad in the coming days.
PHOTO JUSTIN TANG, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Federal Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos
Again on Tuesday, Mr. Duclos appeared in front of a microphone as he left the House of Commons to reiterate his concern about the spread of the Omicron variant across the world.
According to Duclos, the Omicron variant “deploys very quickly”.
Our concern is that Canadians will be stuck abroad because of the rapidly changing measures other countries may put in place, and also because of the significant risk that there may be of catching this variant. virus, while traveling abroad.
Jean-Yves Duclos, Federal Minister of Health
“And if so, things could be very complicated for these Canadians outside the country,” he warned.
In the spring of 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ottawa had organized dozens of repatriation flights for citizens stranded outside of Canada. Travelers were advised to avoid all travel abroad.
On October 21, Ottawa lifted its advice to avoid non-essential travel outside the country. The federal authorities nevertheless continued to urge caution.
When the Omicron variant emerged, the federal government announced a ban on entry to travelers coming from a number of countries where it was first detected. Since then, cases of this new, highly contagious variant have been reported almost everywhere.
Ottawa has planned to test all travelers arriving in the country, except those from the United States, to curb Omicron’s entry into Canada. It was quickly realized that even by sparing those, too numerous, arriving from south of the border, the Canadian authorities did not have the means to pass the test to all the other travelers.
Last Friday, Minister Duclos calculated that 23,000 travelers had to be tested per day and that at that time it was only possible to do 17,000 tests per day in the country’s airports.
With The Canadian Press