Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Justin Pierre James TrudeauBlinken Holds Initial Calls As Biden’s Secretary of State Canadian Lawmakers Vote to Make Proud Boys a Terrorist Organization Biden Talks NATO Climate Change in First Presidential Call with Macron from France MORE Friday revealed new restrictions on international travel to the country.
Trudeau said in a press conference that Canada’s major airlines – Air Canada, West Jet, Sunwing and Air Transit – are suspending flights to all Caribbean destinations and Mexico from Sunday to April 30.
The airlines “are making arrangements with customers currently traveling in these regions to organize their return flights,” Trudeau said.
Additionally, from next week, international flights must land at one of the country’s four airports – Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal.
Trudeau said Canada will introduce mandatory airport PCR testing for travelers returning to the country “in the coming weeks”. Travelers will then have to go into quarantine at an approved hotel for up to three days pending their results at their own expense.
Travelers who test negative are then quarantined at home “under significantly increased surveillance and enforcement.”
Those who test positive will need to be quarantined at designated government facilities to make sure they don’t have any of the new, more contagious variants of COVID-19.
Trudeau also said the nation will soon require non-essential travelers to pass a negative COVID-19 test before entering the land border with the US, and he said Canada is working on additional testing requirements for overland travel.
Canada currently required air travelers to test negative before boarding international flights bound for Canada, and anyone entering the country must be quarantined or isolated for 14 days.
“With the challenges we currently face with COVID-19, both here and abroad, we all agree that now is not the time to fly,” said Trudeau.
According to a census from Johns Hopkins University, there have been 770,427 coronavirus infections in Canada since the start of the pandemic and more than 19,000 deaths.