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Canada: PM Trudeau suspends flights to all Caribbean destinations

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The Caribbean’s travel and tourism sector was dealt another potentially devastating blow on Friday when Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the suspension of flights to all Caribbean destinations and Mexico.

This travel ban will stay in place until April 30, 2021, with Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, Turks and Caicos, Anguilla, Aruba and the Bahamas most likely to be affected.

The announcement was made amid mounting concerns about new, likely more contagious variants of COVID-19.

What’s more, it is now mandatory for travellers to quarantine in a hotel at their own expense when they arrive in Canada.

In addition to the pre-boarding test Canada already requires, the government will be introducing mandatory PCR testing at the airport for people returning to Canada.

“Travellers will then have to wait for up to three days at an approved hotel for their test results, at their own expense, which is expected to be more than $2000,” Trudeau said.

“Those with negative test results will then be able to quarantine at home under significantly increased surveillance and enforcement.”

The prime minister said those with positive tests will be immediately required to quarantine in designated government facilities to make sure they’re not carrying variants of particular concern.

Trudeau also said the government and Canada’s main airlines have agreed to suspend service to sun destinations right away.

He said Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing, and Air Transat are cancelling air service to all Caribbean destinations and Mexico starting Sunday until April 30.

“They will be making arrangements with their customers who are currently on a trip in these regions to organise their return flights,” Trudeau said.

He said starting next week, all international passenger flights must land at the following four airports:

    Vancouver

    Toronto

    Calgary

    Montreal

“We will also, in the coming weeks, be requiring nonessential travellers to show a negative test before entry at the land border with the US, and we are working to stand up additional testing requirements for land travel,” Trudeau said.

Canada already requires those entering the country to self-isolate for 14 days and to present a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days before arrival.

The move to require a hotel stay upon return would discourage vacations as people would not want to have to quarantine at a hotel at their own expense upon return.

“It’s excellent. It’s a shame it’s this late. This is something they could have done ages ago,” said Dr Andrew Morris, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Toronto and the medical director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at Sinai-University Health Network.

“This is definitely a step in the right direction.”

More and more governments are thinking about ways to be more aggressive because of the new variants, delays in vaccines, the challenges with getting the population vaccinated and the strains on health care systems.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, was posed to make COVID-19 testing mandatory at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport for all incoming international travellers, according to two officials familiar with the matter. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak about it ahead of an announcement later Friday by Ontario’s premier. (Loop News).

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