Christin Clement / Edge columnist
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic there have been a lot of restrictions and difficult times for all people. A hope for more freedom was now announced by the government on February 15. Fully vaccinated travelers don’t need a PCR test anymore when entering Canada starting on February, 28, but they just need the cheaper rapid antigen test.
This is good because of the coronavirus were a lot of restrictions and people hadn’t freedom and now it looks like things are slowly getting back to normal. It is not a big step but some people feel already better about this announcement and a lot of Canadians want to go on trips.
While vaccinated people don’t need a PCR test anymore it’s a reason for them to start traveling again. According to Katherine Velan, a travel agent, she gets many bookings from her clients for flights. A lot of people were unsure about traveling because of the virus and this had the effect that hotels, restaurants, and airlines had a rough time. A lot of restaurants and hotels had to fire their staff and this causes huge unemployment. For example, the unemployment rate in Canada rose 0.6 percentage points to 9.4%, the highest in August 2020. When people would start traveling, a lot of people and countries would benefit from this.
Another good thing is, that people don’t need to self-isolate anymore or need to wait for their test results before attending school, camps, or university. With this, people don’t need to panic about it not being present for their work. It is way easier because they don’t need to schedule more time for their travels. A lot of people had to self-isolate themselves for waiting for their COVID test result, this could take two to five days and this time is important for especially young people that need to go to school. Also, false-positive results took a lot of people time away.
Last, the PCR tests have cost many people a lot of money especially for bigger families and for people that have to travel a lot because of their work. Now that vaccinated travelers only need a cheap antigen rapid test it is way cheaper for many people to afford these COVID tests. The PCR COVID test that people had to take when entering Canada has cost up to $100. Also, the government had to spend millions of dollars for random tests for vaccinated travelers. A woman had to spend $300 for her two COVID tests for entering Canada, she said it was a waste of money.
In conclusion, it is better for most of the people that vaccinated travelers don’t need a PCR test anymore. People are no anymore scared to start traveling again and this is a good thing for other countries. It is better for private people that want to travel and don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on their tests, also for bigger families, and especially for the government that doesn’t need to spend millions of dollars on unnecessary tests for vaccinated travelers.
Sources:
Travellers will no longer need a molecular COVID test to get into Canada by Laura Osman
Feds scrapping pre-arrival PCR testing requirement for fully vaccinated travellers by Sarah Turnbull
Ottawa dropping pre-arrival PCR test for travellers as of Feb. 28 by Sophia Harris
Ottawa close to removing pre-arrival COVID-19 test for fully vaccinated Canadian travellers: sources by Sophia Harris
Labour Force Survey, January 2021
https://www.cbc.ca/news/travel-agents-high-demand-pcr-test-arrival-dropped-1.6354443 by Maya Lach-Aidelbaum