Canada bans flights from India and Pakistan for 30 days:
April 26, 2021
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Canada has decided to ban all flights that take off from India and Pakistan for 30 days because of the rising second-strained Covid cases within these two countries.
This announcement was made by the Canadian Transport Minister Omar Alghabra in which the flight ban took effect from Thursday midnight.
Canada is not the only country to ban Indian and Pakistani flight. The ban is supported by countries like the United Kingdom, Australia as well as Singapore.
This ban too an effect after the coronavirus unprecedentedly spiked in India on Wednesday over 3.14 lakh new cases while the death toll increased to 1,84,657 along with 2104 new fatalities.
The announcement was made based on the advice from federal health officials in order to buy time to assess more data, and to provide “certainty” for Canadians considering travelling to the region, the Toronto Star reported.
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However, the cargo flights are not banned and Ottawa is still hoping that India, which has suspended vaccine exports, will send the bulk of 1.5 million AstraZeneca doses Canada had purchased through the Serum Institute of India.
In recent weeks, 50 per cent of travelers arriving in Canada who tested positive for COVID-19 came from India, even though those flights were only 20 per cent of all international arrivals. And an alarming number of positive cases also showed up in travelers from Pakistan.
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Health Minister Patty Hajdu had already announced that the all the travelers arriving to Canada must mandatorily quarantine themselves for two weeks but how ever this significant decision did go mostly unnoticed due to which the pause for travel was the major decision to be taken to control the uninvited viruses to the country from a foreign land.
Canadian Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Howard Njoo, referred the current situation of India and Pakistan and remarked them as “raging epidemic”. He also explained that currently it is quiet impossible for stopping the virus from spreading as the borders are quiet artificial. Therefore, the only method to at least take charge of the situation is to controlling transportation and tourism at least for a period of 30 days, though this ban is regarded the largest flight band in the history of Canada.
The variant detected in India has now been detected in Quebec, B.C. and Alberta. According to federal data, 121 international flights between April 7 and April 18 had at least one passenger with COVID-19.
According to Johns Hopkins University, Canada has 1,164,108 confirmed coronavirus cases and 23,810 people have died from the virus.
Other than flights, even the restaurants, gyms and classrooms across Canada shall remain closed until 30 days. The most non-essential working system for the given time period shall be working from home and those who are the industrial workers or those who only can work onsite shall be provided with a working schedule so that each one is advised to visit the worksite only when advised to visit.
