Front Burner - Coronavirus: Canada closing border to most non-citizens

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

Canada is barring entry to all travellers who are not citizens, permanent residents or Americans, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced today. Will the prime minister’s new measures have a meaningful impact? Why are American citizens allowed to enter Canada, while some border states are grappling with widespread community transmission? Adam Miller from CBC’s health unit is back to discuss.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey everyone, Jamie here. This is the second in our ongoing series of evening editions of FrontB Burner. If you're a new listener, welcome. We usually make just a single episode a day for your morning commute, but given how much is happening with the coronavirus pandemic, we thought a second, shorter end of day episode would be useful. We're going to try and summarize the most

important daily developments for you, and then you can still look for our longer, more in-depth episodes in the morning. Okay, here's the show. Adam Miller is back with me, senior writer with the Health Unit here at CBC News. Hi, Adam. Hi. All right, so let's get started with this. We will be denying entry to Canada to people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents. This measure will carve out some designated exceptions including for air crews, diplomats, immediate family members of Canadian citizens and at this time U.S. citizens. All right, so that is, of course, the prime minister closing the borders to many people.

And how will this help the fight against COVID-19? Yeah, I mean, I think that's really the million dollar question, right? Like we've seen countries close their borders, some that have had effective measures to contain their outbreaks. Countries like Italy have closed their borders, but they're dealing with incredibly bad outbreaks right now.

So I think it really remains to be seen what kind of effect this will have on the spread of COVID-19 in our country. But, you know, we're just going to be monitoring the situation and hopefully we'll see this have some sort of an impact in the coming days. Right. I am having a hard time following the logic here. So last week, Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu said border closures weren't an effective tool in fighting this. And now we have border closure. So did Trudeau address that today when he spoke to the country? Did he provide a science-based argument for why the government's position changed in just days? Well, Trudeau says that they're always following the advice of experts and the situation is evolving. They're constantly looking at the science around this, but you're right. I mean,

it's something that's completely changed from just a few days ago, but really that's kind of the situation we're in. I think they are effective if they're done at the right time. It really just sort of remains to be seen if we've enacted these measures at the right time. You know, some experts I spoke to have said that, yes, they think that there's still time to do this. I mean, Theresa Tammett said yesterday and other health officials today had said the window's narrowing on this. So, you know, it makes sense that they would do this now, but we don't know, right?

Like this could already be narrowed to a point where it may not have as big of an impact. So I think that, you know, we'll know in the coming days and weeks what effect this will have on our outbreak and the spread of this in our country. But yeah, right now, we're just kind of in a holding pattern. Why borders, you think, and not more widespread mandated closures across the country? Restaurants, bars, gyms, movie theaters, public spaces? We didn't see that today. No, we didn't. And I think there's been a bit of a disconnect. And I saw this raised today in some of the questions to some of the ministers and health officials. A lot of provinces are

taking measures into their own hands. There seems to be a little bit of a disconnect in the way in which these measures are implemented. But Quebec you know, Quebec, for example, has taken some really strict measures. In Ontario, they're recommending that bars and restaurants close, but they're definitely not mandating it. But we didn't see that messaging from the federal government. And it's a little confusing. I think Patty Hajdu, the health minister, had taken a question on that. And she said, you know, we're in constant contact. We're coordinating. All of these decisions are made together. But, you know when you're sitting back, and you're looking at what's being said by the Prime Minister, the Chief Public Health Officer, there is a bit of a disconnect

when you get down to the local level, the provincial level, it seems to be that things are happening, you know, in different regions in different ways. So I want to loop back with you for a moment to the border closure. So the prime minister said that Americans are exempted from this ban. But we do know that the U.S. is working its way up the list of countries with cases. And did Trudeau explain why Americans can still enter the country, but some from a place with far fewer cases, cannot enter the country? Yeah, that's a really good question. Trudeau basically said that for the moment, American citizens will still be allowed to come to Canada. And that's in light of what he said is this integration between our two countries, right? That's economic integration, social integration.

I think the economy is really a key part of that. But he does also say that any measure to protect Canadians is on the table. So if you're reading between the lines here, you can kind of see that if we see cases spike in the U.S., especially in states that border Canada, if we're starting to see a huge rise in the number of cases in Canada that have direct travel links to the United States, I think we're going to see some pressure put on the prime minister to revisit that. And we may in the coming days even see the border be closed to Americans as well. You have to keep in mind that it would be really disruptive to our supply chains, things like food and medications and supplies. So I think he's trying to balance all that when he makes this decision. So we just kind of really have to take all that into account.

And, you know, even though we're seeing a huge number of cases in the United States and we are seeing some cases, you know, some pretty substantial outbreaks here linked to cases in the United States. And we are seeing some cases, you know, some pretty substantial outbreaks here linked to cases in the United States. We do know that the U.S. has widespread community transmission, particularly in Washington state, which borders British Columbia. And so is that not concerning enough? I think it's very concerning. You know, we've seen an explosion of cases in Washington state, you know, hundreds of new cases. And it's something that really, I think, is concerning B.C. health officials. We saw Bonnie Henry, the medical officer of health there today, say, you know, if you're coming from this, just don't come from the United States to British Columbia. There was a really significant case tied to travel. The outbreak that occurred at the nursing home in British Columbia that has seen four deaths now

and 30 new cases reported today is largely due to that outbreak in Washington state. Yeah, it's something that's really concerning. And I think you can tell that certain provinces, especially British Columbia, are particularly worried about that. I want to talk to you a little bit about what's going on at points of entry. So first of all, Trudeau said all incoming international air traffic will be routed into Calgary, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, I understand that 90% of international air traffic is already routed into these four major metropolises. So I imagine this isn't necessarily going to change the picture too drastically, right? You're right. It's not going to change the picture too drastically, but I think it's sort of just a way to tie up those loose ends

to really coordinate through those four points of entry so that they can really inform and screen passengers as they're coming in and just make sure they're not missing anybody. Okay. And then what do we know about what's happening on the ground here? Because there have been lots and lots of reports of people who are landing at these airports and they're not getting advice that's lining up with what we're hearing from public health officials. For example, isolating yourself for 14 days. We've seen a lot of reports of this. It's kind of been bubbling up over the weekend. We've seen certain provinces sending officials to these airports to really make sure that the

message is getting to travelers as they come into the country that they have to self-isolate for 14 days, trying to make sure that people take this seriously. I think this is a huge concern. And I think that's part of the reason this announcement was made by Trudeau today. They're trying to get this out there that, you know, if you're traveling abroad, get home. And as soon as you get home, you know, you got to take these measures but it's it's been concerning to watch um seeing the amount of people speaking out about this saying i just arrived at the airport i've had no instruction um so i think the provinces again were sort of taking these measures into their own hands and trying to get this message across themselves because it wasn't coming from Canadian border officials, which is under federal jurisdiction. So

it's really concerning to see this. Yeah. The Prime Minister also said that no one who is displaying any symptoms will be permitted to board a flight to Canada and that air operators will be required to complete a basic health assessment of every passenger based on guidelines from the Public Health Agency of Canada. Do we have any sense right now of how that is going to be policed, particularly considering that we've been seeing so many issues with just informing and screening passengers who are arriving here? Yeah, I mean, I have some big concerns with this. It's really interesting to me, this approach, that you're basically putting all of this on the airlines to screen passengers in different countries

to make sure that people aren't displaying symptoms before they get on a flight. But there are so many issues with this. I mean, if someone's symptomatic, and one of the key things with this coronavirus is that, you know, fever is a telltale sign. We're seeing a lot of testing focused around fever, right? Symptoms display in different ways. So if a passenger just takes a Tylenol before they get on a flight, that could, you know, sort of subdue their fever and, you know, not make them an obvious candidate for someone who shouldn't be allowed on the flight. And it's important to note, too, like we learned a lot about this from SARS. You know, more than six and a half million travelers were screened at Canadian airports in the SARS epidemic in 2003.

reports in the SARS epidemic in 2003. And we isolated thousands of passengers for assessment by nurses and quarantine officers. We found none of them to have SARS. So it's really interesting. And they also piloted a thermal scanning project and two and a half million passengers were screened. Hundreds were required further assessment. And none of those were found to have SARS either. So if you look at the report out of SARS, you know, things we need to learn from this. You know, one of the key things was that airport screenings don't work. So it's just really puzzling to me that, A, we're going to put this on airport staff to do this, airline staff, and B, you know, somehow we think that we're going to catch cases and prevent, you know, spread of COVID-19 in Canada linked to travel abroad. Like it just, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. Okay, Adam, thank you. We'll talk to you soon.

Okay, thanks. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection watch new episodes of dragon's den free on cbc gem brought to you in part by national angel capital organization empowering canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections okay that's it for this evening tomorrow in our morning drop we've got a story that really brings home the message about how important social distancing is. I spoke with a man who has cerebral palsy, and he's worried that if people don't follow these public health warnings, he could become quite sick, even die.

I'm Jamie Poisson. Thank you so much for listening, and talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.