It’s the news nearly four million Canadians have been waiting to hear: People who received doses of two different COVID-19 vaccines will qualify as fully vaccinated when the US reopens its land borders to nonessential travel next month.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made the announcement Friday night, culminating a dizzying week of developments signaling the looming end of 19 months of pandemic-induced North American travel restrictions. .
People with “any combination” of two doses of a vaccine approved by the US Food and Drug Administration or the World Health Organization “are considered fully vaccinated,” the agency said in a statement.
“While the CDC has not recommended mixing vaccine types in a primary series, we recognize that this is increasingly common in other countries, so it should be accepted for the interpretation of vaccine records.”
The news also confirms what the White House acknowledged early Friday to be a likely development: that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, approved by the WHO but not the FDA, would be deemed acceptable.
The CDC had already given the green light to foreign travelers who received the AstraZeneca vaccine, but as of Friday they had not expressly confirmed the same policy for those crossing into the United States by land.
Earlier in the day, White House officials said the new rules would take effect on November 8, both at land borders and for people arriving from several foreign countries where travel to the United States has been prohibited since March. 2020.
The United States will not ask its next visitors to undergo a COVID-19 test prior to departure, unlike Canada, which requires travelers to show proof of a recent negative test, a costly entry condition that costs around $ 200 per person.
New York Congressman Brian Higgins, who has been campaigning relentlessly against travel restrictions for months, is urging the federal government in Ottawa to reconsider that rule.
“I think the United States decision to allow Canadians to enter the United States without a test again underscores the potency of the vaccine,” Higgins said in an interview Friday.
“I would like that to be reciprocated by our Canadian neighbors.”
The November 8 start date comes three months after Canada initially began allowing fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents to return to cross the border in August.
“It will be what we do with him, and I’m happy that people can now be reunited with their loved ones and all those other problems,” Higgins said.
“But the fact of the matter is that the US border with our Canadian neighbors should have been open months ago.”
The United States Travel Association has estimated that the closures of the Mexican and Canadian borders have cost US businesses $ 1.5 billion in travel exports _ domestic spending by foreign visitors _ each month.
As for the test requirement, Canadian public health officials made clear Friday that it will not go away any time soon.
“We are in a situation in Canada where our health systems are still very fragile,” said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s director of public health.
“We need to be very vigilant and cautious at this point, but we will have ongoing discussions with the CDC and the United States to see what is reasonable on the trajectory going forward.”
The White House has never publicly explained why it waited three months after Canada began relaxing its restrictions. Speculation centered on the desire to open both land borders at the same time, something that a growing immigration crisis on the US-Mexico border made politically difficult.
“Canada shouldn’t have had to wait for Mexico,” said Maryscott Greenwood, executive director of the DC-based Canadian American Business Council.
“Science, politics, politics, reality, none of that would lead you to say, ‘Let’s do these things together.’ What would be better to do together is for Canada and the United States to work together across our common border, and Mexico and the United States to work together across that border. That makes some sense. “
Higgins agreed, noting that the United States is allowing travelers vaccinated in Mexico to enter the country even though only 38.5 percent of that country’s population is fully vaccinated.
“This whole argument that, ‘We have to wait until we get a higher vaccination rate,’ is thrown out the window,” he said.
“The US federal government made my point in that – they’re saying, ‘Hey, look, we’d like to have more Mexicans as a percentage of the adult population vaccinated, but if they’re vaccinated, they’re safe. “
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland objected Thursday when asked whether Canada would push in its case in the future for the United States to use separate and distinct political approaches on its northern and southern borders.
“I believe that we must be respectful of the sovereign decisions of all other countries around their borders and the sovereign right of all other countries to manage their borders as they see fit,” Freeland said.
“Having said that, I think it’s also worth noting that Canada has a very effective and very close partnership with the United States, as we should.”
Since the dawn of NAFTA 25 years ago, the United States has tended to view its two borders through an economic lens – and in that context, they are more similar than most Canadians realize, said Bill Anderson, director of the Institute. Cross-border. at the University of Windsor.
“People have the idea that in Mexico, what there is is a lot of people trying to cross the border illegally, and maybe there are some imports and exports of tomatoes and tequila. It’s not that, ”Anderson said.
“It is very similar (to Canada) in terms of ports of entry. A lot of business people are also crossing regularly and of course there are a lot of crossings for tourism, there are a lot of family crossings, the volume of people who cross legally is huge there too. ”
Reference-toronto.citynews.ca