bambinomartino

I recall reading some relatively serious person on twitter that US border officials have told him they are opening the border in June regardless of what Canada says or does.

There are reports that Trudeau and Freeland will go into hotel quarantine upon their return from G7. What are the chances they pay the 2k out of their own pockets? Did Garneau last month? I am afraid it will give the appearance of them walking the walk ("we're all in this together") when in fact it will amount to a small inconvenience, an extra day in a hotel at the tail end of a business trip. It's the monetary penalty, easily 5% of their annual take-home pay in many cases, that's affecting regular folks caught in this nonsense.

rankourabu

The latest poll numbers are here. Anyone who thinks that (without court action) things are changing anytime soon is dreaming. (and I'd love to be proven wrong)

https://angusreid.org/covid-vaccine-passport/

52% of sheeple still think that the hotel prisons are necessary, but it decreases obviously with people who actually travel.
No government is going to change anything when you got 52% applauding the nonsense as necessary.

bambinomartino

People with access to the live stream of the court hearing are live tweeting. One interesting tidbit provided by the government's lawyer: 69% of the people who tested positive on arrival had a negative pre-departure test. I am trying to wrap my head around this. I think there were some destinations where testing isn't readily available and thus not required to board. These must be a negligible percentage of passengers. So basically, the positivity rate that the government had released (1.5 - 1.7%) is already overstated by around 30% with respect to people who had tested negative T-72 hours.

Now, the other information that they released when justifying the India ban was that 50% of positive tests came from 20% of flights from India (or South Asia?). If we deduct from the 69% above, that means 19% of positive tests come from the other 80% of travellers (or flights, they never specified if those 20% of flights corresponded to 20% of travellers, but let's assume they do, and that flights with people who didn't test before boarding are few).

If my math is right, that corresponds to around 0.3% to 0.4% positivity rate among the travellers from other destination, or the same as the number they disclosed (only when the had to defend the lack of hotel quarantine at land borders) of around 3 in 1000 who test positive at land border crossings.

That's background noise. That's a positivity rate commensurate with that of Australia. Where they have this thing beat, supposedly.

LETTERBOY

I can see the US unilaterally opening the border - the overwhelming trend in the US is to drop restrictions. If that does happen, the comments sections of articles on Canadian news websites will make for fun reading.

EmailKid

Sure ..... but.

It's the states that are opening up, and the federal gov't that controls the border

But they appear to be listening to CDC, so let's see what they have to say

And the graphic that rankourabu posted tells me if there is an opening, it will be unilateral.

bambinomartino

This other graph makes me even sadder. Almost half want a 14-day quarantine for fully vaccinated travellers (42% no, 11% not sure), and nearly 1/3 hotel jail (57% no, 12% not sure).

Yul_voyager

The US could reopen unilaterally but if Canada still impose the 14 days quarantine, non-essential travels will still be somewhat limited...

bambinomartino

If the hotel quarantine remains, then someone from YVR could drive to SEA, fly to OGG and back and then drive home, avoiding the hotel hassle. There would be some utility.

YYZ1313

To be fair though most people who are for these measures don't even travel, even pre-COVID. Lots of jealousy going on. If you read comments on social media under articles about this, you'll see a lot of ''if you can afford to travel, you can afford the hotel quarantine''.

tcook052

Folks, let's stick to the thread topic, arrival airport hotel quarantine program, and leave border debates for other places. Thanks.

tcook052
Canada forum moderator

jlisi984

Firstly, does anybody know when we can expect a verdict/update on the court case?

Secondly, this is also somewhat relevant to the federal case:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north...avut-1.6052973

bambinomartino

The press reported that the judge stated that he will try to get a decision out as soon as possible given the importance and time sensitivity of the subject matter. There are lots of complex Charter issues issues however, 3 full days of hearings and thousands of pages of evidence to review and consider. A week or two if we're lucky?

bambinomartino

Trudeau will NOT stay at a quarantine hotel.

If that applies to the entire delegation, that's actually some nontrivial savings to the taxpayer. But, like, srsly?


Edit: Global news says he will.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7921633/c...ustin-trudeau/

In Ottawa!?!? The hotel "is currently being prepared". I retract my earlier comment re. the cost.

Part of me was hoping he would do the usual hotel quarantine, giving regular Canadians a chance to give him a piece of their minds (at check-in or during yard time) but then I thought, how would they have the requisite security for high-ranking officials. That's how.

CRC99

He will only stay till the results are available. If they use an RT PCR test that takes 15 minutes.....so short stay.

Yul_voyager

Starting June 7, YUL will offer PCR tests with results available in 1 hour for departing passengers, for 299$.
If you can get one when you arrive, it would defeat all the purpose for the hotel stay. Why, after more than one year, did they not develop that, instead of wasting millions of dollars (passengers' AND taxpayers') with those stupid hotel-prison stays ?