https://www.routesonline.com/news/38...as-of-13mar20/

Even if some pandemic experts might disagree, the best way to supress an epidemic is to stop the virus from travelling. You still have people who are not tested that arrive freely in Canada. Countries that are the less affected are countries that took strong actions promptly.

Legault has been praised by the doctors and other associations for its quick response. The daily media event with the responsable ministers is again showing hands on leadership. It doesn't have anything to do with being anti-science.

US has expanded their travel ban to include UK and Ireland.

There go those U.K. pax transiting via Canada to US.

Canada should follow with same !

With the US move it is very likely we will see an increase of transit passengers through Canada.

The US is not banning flights. It is banning non-US nationals and non-residents who have been in the UK in the past 14 days from entry. US nationals can still fly and the airlines will still be flying, just with few flights reflecting the reduced demand.

The elephant in the room is that the UK probably has a better handle on this than the US. If we were to ban flights from anywhere it would be New York state and Washington state. Those two states have a high infection rate than the UK.

I disagree. Less.

Canada is telling people that are out of the country to come home now. Possibility of the us/Canada border being closed for a bit in the near future.

The best way of stopping the spread of this would be to require people to isolate where they are currently for two weeks. That is not what is happening here. The travel bans are all driven by the logo on the front of your passport and if you have a green card or are an immediate relative to someone that does. Is this the most rational way of approaching the problem? No. Does it help? Yes.

Legault was advising people who traveled outside of Quebec to self isolate. That is an weird position to have given the infection rate in most of Canada is less than Quebec. Why should someone in Gatinau be more worried if they spent time in Ottawa but not worried if they spent time in Montreal. I think it is legitimate to show caution having visited a hot spot (regardless of where the political boundaries are). Currently Seattle and New York appear to be the major ones in North America. In Canada it is Toronto and Vancouver.

The Americas were falling into the same trap. When Trump first starting talking about closing the boarder it was going to be the boarder with Mexico. Someone likely convinced him that was not very effective given Europe and the US have a bigger problem that Mexico. What is going to be interesting to see is how the US handled the New York and Seattle area in the coming days.

And the self isolation will be a requirement in the next days. Most recent infections are visitors from the US. Medical chiefs in QC has asked again today to close the borders. i agree with you that we shouldn't let anyone in, be it a national or tourist. I guess we'll see more closures when a death too will be higher, thus too late.

The Feds response is, we already have cases in Canada... Yes, we shouldn't get more in...

Morocco has banned flights to a hand full of different countries, Canada is one of them

Air Canada's last flight tonight to CMN and will return to YUL tomorrow.

As I said in the other thread, the feds are going to take a lot of heat for continuing to let lots of people coming from abroad into the country when it was already clear it was a bad idea.

Right now the only person with any power who is saying anything is Legault.

AC suspensions:

Toronto-Abbotsford Full summer suspension
Toronto-San Jose New route launch postponed to until June 1st.
Toronto-Portland Seasonal startup delayed until June 30th.
Montreal-Seattle New route launch postponed to June 1st.
Toronto-Copenhagen Temporary suspension from March 17 to April 30.
Toronto-Dubai Temporary suspension from March 29 to April 24.
Toronto-Madrid Temporary suspension from March 18 to May 1.
Toronto-Budapest Seasonal startup delayed until May 2.
Montreal/Toronto-Barcelona Seasonal startup delayed until May 1.
Montreal-Athens Seasonal startup delayed until April 10
Toronto-Athens Seasonal startup delayed until April 9.
Toronto-Israel Temporary suspension from March 18 to March 30.
Toronto-Milan Seasonal startup delayed until June 4th.
Toronto-Rome Temporary suspension from March 10 to April 30.
Montreal-Rome Temporary suspension from March 10 to April 30.
Montreal-Venice Full summer suspension.
Montreal-Marseille Full summer suspension.
Montreal-Bordeaux Full summer suspension.
Toronto-Brussels New route launch postponed to June 3rd.
Ottawa-London (Heathrow) Temporary suspension from April 7th to April 30th.
All routes to the People’s Republic of China Suspension extended to April 30th.
Toronto-Hong Kong Suspension extended to May 31st.
Toronto-Seoul (Incheon) Suspension extended May 31st. Last flight from Toronto departs March 21st.
Calgary-Tokyo (Narita) Seasonal startup delayed until June 30th.
Montreal-Lima Earlier route cancelation, last flight April 30th.

https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...na-travel.html

Legault will probably limit all transportation in QC and put quarantine out of the airports (out of the feds juridiction) because Trudeau is doing such an horrible job. This is what has to be done. It's like no one in the federal government knows how to deal with a pandemic, it's ridiculous. I have family from NB who are sick and asks me why are we still allowing tourists who have the virus.

UK position, yeah, you'll lose your loved ones sooner, but we'll have an immune society. In Canada, better get ready to die... It's ridiculous. I absolutely loathe soft people and it's showed again that sensitive people can't be trusted. We let sick people in for virtue signalling.

What you can tell your family in NB is the health care system in NB has detected a total of "1 person" one person who has the virus in the province. So if they are sick it is probably more important for them to see a doctor and worry about their own health than that of tourists.

As for the tourists the feds are letting in, given the state of the world today, the number coming into Canada is quite low and going down every day. They also don't apear to be significant as a cause of spread. Most of the spread looks to be Canadians returning from abroad.

I do not think most people calling for tighter borders are solely concerned about foreigners contaminating Canadians. Canadians returning from abroad and left to their own devices are a huge problem.

Yeah I can't fathom how people can't grasp that.

Yes! That is a big part of it. Canadians returning from hot spots/low control area like Iran have spread the virus here.

Also, this explains the reasoning why the UK was finally added to the US travel ban list. Travellers from the UK should also be banned by Canada (a week ago), but we have pretty weak/indecisive leadership right now. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51892402

I think some probably see it as a sinister plot to keep Canada's population white or something...

In any event, how many tourists are coming to Canada right now?

If anything Cuba DR and Mexico should be keeping Canadians out as we are more likely to infect them.

Until their disgusting hygienic practices unleash yet another global pandemic upon us.

Sully, rinse, wash, dry, repeat.

I would disagree.

There is a narrative being floated (in both the US and Canada) that China created the virus and to protect ourselves we need to stop foreigners from coming into the country. That is an emotional and political argument. Couple that with statements about how well a given political party governs and the entire argument should be reject as political posturing.

The reality is if you look at the US+Canada, we have 10% of the population and 9% of the cases and 2% of the deaths. That suggests maybe our government has a slightly better handle on this just now.

If close boarders it should be driven by scientific modelling not politics. I may not have voted for the Liberals this time around but honestly they are doing a good job on this file.

So if I get this straight... we should avoid public policy decisions that might be critically important just because some people who'd support them might be doing so for the wrong reasons?

BTW I happen to think that our borders are as open as they are precisely due to politics. Not vice versa.

No. What I am saying is we should be making decisions on how best to stop the spread of this disease based on science. This is a massive problem, the government has limited resources (people) and we should not be spending those limited resources on things that look good politically.

A few weeks ago there was a region of China that was the hot spot and the government of China locked down the area stopping anyone from getting out. The position of the government of Canada was if your a Canadian in this location, best thing to do is shelter locally and ride it out taking all precautions possible. A week or two later they decided to offer an some evacuation flights and put people in quarantine when they arrive. I think that was a reasonable respose.

As an example, the US has closed is boarders to people who have spent time in Portugal or Sweden (two fairly low infection places), while at the same time permitting people from Seattle and New York to travel freely. That makes no sense from a scientific perspective.

For this to be successful it has to be based on where the infected are and their state of health and not arbitrary political boundaries on a map or the logos on peoples passports.