China News Service, Toronto, February 28 (Reporter Yu Ruidong) According to the Canadian federal government's earlier plan, Canada will relax a number of entry and epidemic prevention measures from February 28, thus starting the steps to ease travel restrictions in stages.
When entering Canada, passengers can present the rapid antigen test results provided by professional testing institutions within one day before entry, or the nucleic acid test results within 72 hours before entry.
Previously, all incoming passengers were required to provide a negative nucleic acid (PCR) test certificate.
Passengers who have been fully vaccinated against the new crown will no longer need to face mandatory virus testing upon entry, but will be subject to random sampling.
Those selected are also no longer required to be quarantined pending test results.
Children under the age of 12 traveling with fully vaccinated adult travelers may have all restrictions on activity lifted.
International passenger flights can resume operations at all eligible airports in Canada.
Previously, Canada had only 18 airports for international passenger flights.
Unvaccinated foreigners are still not allowed to enter Canada in principle.
Other unvaccinated travelers are still required to quarantine for 14 days and be tested on day 8 after entering the country.
For now, the Canadian government is still advising people who have not been adequately vaccinated against COVID-19 to continue to avoid "non-essential" cross-border travel.
Recently, Canadian provinces and territories are gradually relaxing public epidemic prevention restrictions, including relaxing or canceling the passenger capacity restrictions in indoor public places such as restaurants and cinemas, and canceling vaccination certificates (ie "vaccine passports").
Since February 28, the central province of Saskatchewan has lifted epidemic prevention requirements, including wearing masks in indoor venues.
People in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia on the Atlantic coast no longer need to show a "vaccine passport" when going out.
Ontario, Manitoba and other provinces will also end the use of "vaccine passports" starting in March.
Alberta will lift almost all public quarantine orders.
In Ontario, which has the largest cumulative number of reported cases, Premier Doug Ford said the province is not far off from lifting the mask requirement.
At present, the cumulative number of reported cases in Canada is nearly 3.284 million, with 36,537 deaths and nearly 116,000 active cases.
The average daily test positive rate in the last seven days was 10.9%.
The daily number of new cases has dropped from more than 40,000 to nearly 50,000 from the end of December last year to the beginning of January this year, to more than 3,000 currently.
The number of hospitalized cases also showed a significant downward trend.
In addition, 84.3% of the country's population has received at least one case of the new crown vaccine, and 80.06% have achieved full vaccination.