That depends.

Can I screen passengers getting on the flights and only allow citizens, residents or foreign workers? If so, then yes that's OK.

Can I then spend the pittance (relatively speaking) to have the arrivals tested on-site and then put up - at taxpayer expense - in a quarantine hotel? If so, then yes that's OK in my new world order.

Can I then keep those that fail their COVID test kept for another couple weeks in isolation at the taxpayer-paid resort (after seeing what the Federal and Provincial govt's are willing to spend in recent budgets, we can afford to subsidize Marriott and put everyone up in really nice places), while those who are negative carry on their way? If so, then yes - my new world order welcomes that.

Here's the problem: a knee-jerk reaction to what I posted is understandable these days - more often than not, what I said is a view endorsed by those who'd close the borders to anyone who doesn't look like them. However, as a country we shouldn't be doing nothing at all and allowing unfettered access to the country in an attempt to appear open-minded and fair.

If you're aware of what is going on in parts of India right now, you'll understand why people are willing to forge documents and get into Canada: can you blame them? As a service to Canadians who have not been able to see their relatives for the past year, the least the government should be doing is making sure they aren't importing further cases, especially ones from locations where mutated strains are prevalent.

Aren't we already requiring testing pre flight and mandatory hotel quarantine on arrival with additional testing?

Lol no.

Really, all flight arrivals aren't required to test negative pre flight and quarantine on arrival until their test results?

Well that's news to me

https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid/tr...nada-checklist

I'm amazed that people are still proposing "Zero Covid" plans. Anyone creating such plans clearly have forgotten to factor in the real world. Maybe something like that could have been implemented and might have made sense a year ago. Perhaps even six months ago. Now? LOL. Not going to happen. Not a chance.

Why? Have there been some numbers released about transmission from those flights?

It already is.

What modeling are you referring to?

Now is when it makes the most sense. Why waste a year of pain when we're this close to getting to an Israel-like finish line?

I am not sure but India & Brazil numbers are exploding

I do believe it was The West Block on Sunday said Ontario Modeling had them possibly hitting 16,000 cases a day . Not sure what that U of C professors modelling was

Now is when government is least likely to be willing to do it, and the public the least willing to go along with it. Not going to happen.

In that case, I'll trust our health experts on this.

FWIW, India's cases per capita right now are about on par with that of Canada and the US.

And was that the only model they provided? I expect they presented more than one model as does our PHO, and the 16,000 cases per day was likely the "everyone doesn't listen" model.

Zero covid is a pipe dream

This. I don't know if it was possible even from day one here, and the thought of trying it now is silly.

Media tell us the best case scenario cmon.


My biggest fear is more variants coming out of hotspots. I just looked at India and there at 315,000 cases today so far .

Sadly with no federal mandate and provincial politics our only hope is to out vaccinate it

Stay safe

The budget should include greatly increasing icu units and staff bc we will be well into wave 6 by this time next year. Will we be ready, will it be big or controllable and will we be grasping at straws 2 years into it

You could give a billion $ if you do not have the doctors or nurses your screwed . Plus the ones you have you need to stay healthy

I included staff in my post

Yeah but no way your training nurses and doctors that quick.

Sad thing is you see that phrase 6th wave and know your joking but .........

I'm not joking

Part of me gets that as well .

I don't know what media you watch, but all the "mainstream media" here in BC covers the PHO briefings, where they lay out all the scenarios. I expect they do for you as well.

Which sounds like a lot of cases (and of course it is), but you have to consider their population. On a per capita basis, that's like 8,600 cases here, or 75,400 in the US. But it's definitely very concerning, especially because there's no sign of it being a peak yet. That will be the final number for today, though, since the day's been over there for a few hours.

FWIW, Brazil's numbers are about 50% higher, per capita. But they have peaked (for now, anyway) and have eased slightly.

To add a little more perspective - the US numbers in the winter were about 3x India's current numbers per capita. But of course, the US is almost certainly far better equipped to handle it.

This.

Just wanted to add a little nuance to this post that I didn't before as I dashed it off rather quickly.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that there is necessarily no reason to restrict flights in some fashion. I'm suggesting that with the information available to me, I don't have nearly enough to conclude that "they 100% need to cut off travel from India". Maybe one of you does, and can provide it.

Israel doesn't share almost 9,000 km of border with the states. Let's see how good they do with hundreds (thousands?) of land crossings daily from the americuh

Israel is essentially a fortress with hostile neighbours abound
Yes their vaccine drive is impressive and successful but other factors play into why that is possible

Just like other comparisons of Canada to New Zealand and Australia. Yes, they've done a great job and we could probably learn a lot from them, but it's silly to assume that because they have managed to accomplish something very close to "Covid Zero", that we can do the same thing by just taking the same measures. It's not that simple.

On a lighter note, I'm surprised the "LOLCANADA" thread has gone this long without the nude MP story being posted.

First the apology last week from the Liberal MP for showing up nude for an online parliamentary session:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wil...ment-1.5988128

And then today the apology from the Bloc MP for taking a picture of it:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/bloc...ment-1.5396807

LOLCANADA indeed.

The article did point out that there was no specific dress code, so there you go.

The way the whole thing went down is quite amusing. The only mention of at the time it happened, I believe, was the BQ party whip saying:

"We have seen that the member is in great physical shape, but I think members should be reminded to be careful and control the camera well."

Let them test negative and isolate until proven safe. It's not rocket science.



Strange that Taiwan managed it, without even needing to lockdown the country. Lots to be learned from them, and all anyone needed to do was pick up the phone and give them a call.

How Taiwan Beat Covid-19