2021-11-08: Canada's COVID Security Theatre                  rak
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Today, the United States reopened its land border to
international travellers after having closed it 20 months ago to
reduce the spread of COVID. I won't comment on the fact that
closing the land border served only to restrict movement of
lower and middle class Canadians: the US remained open to air
travel from Canada at all times during the pandemic, and wealthy
Canadians who wanted to travel to the USA would just fly.

Instead, I'd like to call bullshit on Canada's continued
requirement that all international travellers show proof on
arrival of a negative PCR COVID test result (or other expensive
molecular test) taken within 72 hours of entry. This policy was
originally imposed to (allegedly) keep travellers from
"importing" COVID. I have always been skeptical of this claim:
when the policy was instated, travellers were already subjected
to a 14-day quarantine, and community transmission had long
dwarfed the number of travel-related cases. Instead, I suspected
that the costly and onerous testing requirements (a PCR test in
North America often costs hundreds of dollars and, depending on
demand, its results may not come back within 72 hours) were
instated solely as a crude measure to discourage travel. Canada
showed its hand a few weeks ago when Public Safety Minister Bill
Blair said that Canadians making short trips to the United
States could use results from a test taken in Canada to re-enter
the country:

> Blair said keeping the policy in place is not a signal that
> the government is trying to discourage travel.
>
> "We just want to make sure that they can do it safely," he
> said. "One of the things that we have done for Canadians who
> wish to go to United States, to engage in a shopping trip, a
> day trip for example, they're going to be able to do so,
> they're going to be able to get their PCR test in Canada, and
> it'll remain valid for up to 72 hours." [0]

Put differently: we are not trying to discourage short term
travel, but we will impose onerous testing requirements that
have no public health benefits for Canadians.

It's time to eliminate the testing theatre for fully vaccinated
travellers, especially for those making day trips to the United
States.

[0] https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/phac-advice-behind-feds-decision-to-keep-requiring-negative-tests-to-enter-canada-blair-1.5625380