MONTREAL: Canada will provide mandatory swab tests at over a hundred land crossings on its border with the US from Monday, Ottawa said, as concerns over the spread of new coronavirus variants grow.
“Travellers entering Canada at land borders, unless exempt, will be required to take a test using a self-swab kit,” a statement from Canada’s Public Health Agency said on Saturday.
“This test can be taken either at the traveller’s quarantine location or at a border testing site.” The border is currently closed to all but essential travel, a policy which is due to last until 21 March after it was extended on Friday.
Travellers entering Canada, unless exempt, must undergo two Covid-19 tests, one on their first day of arrival and one later in their 14-day quarantine period. From Monday, air passengers arriving in Canada will have to undergo a three-day hotel quarantine at their own expense while they wait for the results of a coronavirus test.
Canadian media reported the telephone reservation system for the government-approved hotels was experiencing long delays on Saturday. The country’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam on Friday underlined the danger that a growing number of coronavirus variants posed to Canadians, stressing the need for continued vigilance in the face of the pandemic. Canada on Saturday listed over 840,000 Covid-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, with more than 21,000 deaths.
Meanwhile, the UK government on Sunday vowed to offer a first coronavirus vaccine dose to every adult by the end of July, as it readied to announce a gradual easing of its third lockdown.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who will outline the lockdown review in parliament on Monday, said the faster inoculation campaign would seek to offer a first dose to everyone aged over 50 by mid-April. The previous targets in the world-first campaign were to inoculate over 50s by May, and all adults by September.
“We will now aim to offer a jab to every adult by the end of July, helping us protect the most vulnerable sooner, and take further steps to ease some of the restrictions,” Johnson said, while adding the exit would be “cautious and phased”.
Britain, one of the hardest-hit countries in the world by the Covid-19 pandemic with more than 120,000 deaths, was also the first nation to begin a mass vaccination campaign, in December. More than 17 million people have now received at least a first dose — one-third of the UK population.
But with infection rates and hospitalisations soaring after an easing of restrictions over Christmas, the government imposed a third lockdown at the start of January, including the closure of schools, non-essential businesses and hospitality venues.
In a related development, the United States was on the brink on Sunday of the grim milestone of 500,000 Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic, as the nation’s top virus expert warned a form of normalcy may not return until the end of the year.
Signs of hope were emerging in the rollout of vaccines and the dropping off of a massive winter spike in infections, but the heavy toll continues to mount in a nation that has reported the most fatalities and cases in the world.
“It’s terrible. It is historic. We haven’t seen anything even close to this for well over a hundred years, since the 1918 pandemic of influenza,” Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to US President Joe Biden, said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”