There’s been a lot of complaining about Canada’s border policy, which is that no dirty, plague-ridden Americans can come to Canada for fun. Last week, a statement from the PM’s office included a little hint that fully vaccinated travelers from the US could be allowed to enter in mid-August. If I were in Justin Trudeau’s brown shoes and Chewbacca socks, I’d be doing the same thing, especially if I were thinking about a late-Summer election call.
As in many things, Canada is a bit of a experiment in what would happen if the US had sane politics. The graph below is one example — basically, when there’s a shot available in the Great White North, it goes into an arm shortly after it thaws out.
The current Canadian vaccination rate is 78% first shot (12 and over), and 41% of that same group fully vaxxed. In the US, it’s 65.3% first shot (12 and over), and 56.6% fully vaccinated. The reason for the Canadian disparity is that they were increasing the delay between first and second shots for a while in the beginning to get more first shots in arms, though they now have enough vaccine to that they project 75% fully vaccinated by the end of July.
Anyway, I’m sure there are Canadian readers who have horror stories and complaints, but Canada is looking pretty good from this side of the border. As someone eager to travel to Canada before the Summer is out, my guess is that the “reopening” will be met with whining and caterwauling from American plague rats, if the current Canadian restrictions are going to be the model for entry. You need proof of vaccination, a COVID test within 72 hours, and your unvaccinated children may need to quarantine. I’m going to guess that their proof of vaccination is going to be relatively stringent, since there’s a market in fake vaccine cards in the US.
What I would love to see is the border being opened to any resident of a state that has an electronic vaccine passport issued by the state, which would mean New Yorkers could cross, and residents of some other states will get a heartfelt “Soorry” at the border. But those kinds of dreams open you up for crushing disappointment, so my therapist told me to cut it out.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
isn’t it spelled sore-ry?
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Yup. This exactly.
phein62
Malta has just announced that:
They haven’t announced details on the app, but I’m excited (middle son has a field school waiting on Gozo in August). News posted on Visit Malta.
Jerzy Russian
Do they still use those funny looking coins up there?
Cathie from Canada
I can hardly wait for the border to reopen so we can have professional baseball in Canada this year.
Chances are it would have been open by now if Ontario Premier Doug Ford hadn’t tried to blame supposedly-lax federal border policy for the virus spike Ontario had this spring.
The border has never actually been really “closed” because we still have thousands of trucks crossing all the time because food. But it has been closed to “nonessential” travel, which includes hockey, baseball, basketball. The virus spike that Ford tried to blame on US truck drivers actually happened because Ontario made such a hash of its vaccine distribution, they had hundreds of thousands of doses in storage when people were screaming for them. So Ford really needed to find a way to blame Trudeau somehow for this debacle.
Anyway, vaccinations are proceeding well how, so of course Ford is trying to blame Trudeau for NOT getting the border open faster and everybody is laughing at Ford. Trudeau is simply not going to let the border re-open until he is sure that Ford isn’t able to set him up for another Charley Brown Football experience.
That said, I read this morning that the Blue Jays will be playing in Canada again at the end of July, so HOORAY!!!
dmsilev
The anti-vax fanatics wouldn’t want to visit the Socialist Hellhole of the North anyway.
Baud
I for one would welcome segregation on the basis of vaccine status.
J R in WV
@Baud:
So much THIS, me too!! You don’t want to be vaccinated, STAY AWAY from everyone else, at home or in a FEMA camp. In the wilderness.
dr. bloor
Fire your therapist. The appropriate response in this instance is, “so let’s think about how you can go about making the change you want actually happen.”
Pockmark
I’m a longtime lurker from Newfoundland Canada. Population 521,542.
We’ve got the benefit of being a mostly island province. We locked down pretty hard at the start of the outbreak, and still have a mask mandate.
Total cases 1433. Total deaths 7
We listen to the warnings from experts, followed their advice and panicked with dignity and imagination.
NotMax
Once again, no cell phone, no service.
Fie on that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
not just that, but no smart phone, no service, no? I don’t think I know anyone who still uses a flip phone anymore, but a friend of mine went through a phase of willful ludditery for a while, insisted on using a flip-phone until it started to interfere with his job a couple of years ago
Mike in NC
Today I finished Michael Wolff’s “Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency”. The author went down to Mar-A-Lardass to interview the subject of his book, who comes across as a psychopath (in addition to being a malignant narcissist), whining that he really did win in a landslide, but 10 million votes were stolen from him.
NorthLeft12
If you guys can establish some kind of verifiable proof of vaccination document from some level of government, then you are more than welcome to enjoy our country.
We have had previous experiences in 2020 with Americans who were allowed to drive through Canada to Alaska. They were supposed to drive straight through only stopping for take out food and gas.
Narrator: They turned it into a vacation stopping at restaurants to eat in and at tourist attractions.
So yeah, we have a good idea how some of our neighbours to the south will treat the rules.
Suzanne
@NorthLeft12:
Now imagine living with these fuckers all the time.
Ramalama
@Cathie from Canada: Right. We’ve been able to get goods to Quebec from the US, maybe a wee bit better now than before the pandemic. Have you found that to be true?
Also Health Canada has issued us bar codes attesting to our having been double jabbed. Sort of like a Covid passport, right?
Jay
@Suzanne:
we have to live with our equivalent all the time. 76 new forest fires in BC, 42 human caused. Common Clay of the New West.
dr. bloor
@Ramalama:
Well, either that or the Mark of the Beast.
Kent
Canada is basically what the US would look like without the south or former Confederacy.
rosalind
for those who rely on the Amtrak Cascade train to travel to Seattle, the northern route from Seattle to Vancouver has been stopped since Covid began, with no sign of re-opening. very frustrated they won’t just run a crew-only train into Vancouver and turn around, or turn the train around at the last stop before the border.
Kent
@rosalind: My daughter rides the Amtrak Cascades back and forth between Vancouver WA and Seattle to get to the UW. I’m surprised they don’t at least continue to Bellingham. I guess there isn’t the demand if they can’t go all the way to Vancouver BC.
WV Blondie
Hold on – I’ve had my two doses for several months now, and I have my vaccine card to prove it. But expecting West Virginia to implement an electronic passport? Riiiiiiiiiight.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Cathie from Canada: the ford family really is a crack operation.
Unique uid
FYI about the Covid test within 72 hours: if you are going north thru Michigan, the US127 rest stop/”Welcome Center “ north of Clare has a free testing trailer parked in back. They claim to text you results within 2 hours.
I’m not sure of the hours. https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/ should list that, plus other locations
HinTN
What is the option for sane people from insane states? I, too, want to go to Canada (Vancouver)!
JDM
@MontyTheClipArtMongoose: it was hashish, actually.
HinTN
@rosalind: As have been the ferries between Seattle and Victoria and Vancouver. We’ve wanted to go since we had to cancel November 2020. They’re right to be so vigilant but still…
FlyingToaster
Sadly enough, while the Commonwealth of Massachusetts won’t implement an app (FUCK YOU CHARLIE BAKER!), the only member of ChezToaster who has electronic verification is WarriorTeen, who got her vaccine through color.com. We grown-ups got ours through the hospital system (BILH), which couldn’t be bothered. Pfeh!
UNCDave
Your information for %12+ who are fully vaxxed is out of date (I would not recommend blogto as a source). The number is actually 55.5%, per this site which has been doing a great job with data visualization. The actual number for at least one dose is 79.2%, a touch higher than quoted.
Thor Heyerdahl
@UNCDave: Another great site for Canadian vaccination stats is https://covid19tracker.ca/vaccinationtracker.html
oatler.
Gavin Macleod RIP. Coincidently I watched “The Loved One” on dvd last night.
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