Travel Restrictions - Outland - just got approved and CoPR, when can I come?

[armoured]

A related comment that may be obvious from my comments above: I REALLY don't think it makes sense to attempt to wait until the hotel requirement is lifted. It might be three months; it might be six. Or something more strict could come in.

Everyone has to make their own decisions but I think trying to guess what the requirement will be down the road is a fool's errand, no matter how much you may dislike the hotel policy.

 

[kanislupos]

All of the government travel-related orders-in-council (as far as I'm aware) are on 30-day rolling renewals, including those that started in March 2020. So it's pointless to look at those dates, they're a technical requirement under the law. Government will announce when they are changed - and that's why the travel instructions on govt websites don't say "effective until [date this month" - because it's perfectly clear they will keep renewing until conditions change (or government decides on some other approach.)

If you want to get an indication of when there may be some change - watch the infection, spread, hospitalization and death numbers; and particularly in the provinces/cities where the airports are. When they drop dramatically and stay there, that would likely be a leading indicator.

Vaccination rates are a thing you can follow and the pace now is impressive, but doesn't matter until the disease numbers start to fall and stay there. (Complicated by the explicit strategy now to get first dose in as many arms as possible and start doing the second doses later, and both doses require a few weeks to become effective).

And remember, these are all lagging indicators - the infections detected/hospitalizations/deaths etc all show up weeks after the initial 'infection date' - so there will be caution about removing measures too early.

Or an even simpler strategy: if the provincial governments and feds are all still blaming each other and/or calling for stricter measures, there's no way politically they're going to relax the travel rules/hotel requirement.

As a guess (repeat guess) it's going to be 2-3 months more at least - and not because I am guessing they will remove the hotel requirement in three months, but because no way to guess the covid situation three months from now.

(I'm referring mostly here to the hotel requirement, I'm not even going to hazard a guess about the India flight restrictions)

I'm not even going to try and guess, knowing how some people are obstinately against the vaccine, and are gathering in large groups... Per our plans, I'm still pretty early in the process (Oct 2020 applicant, only recently received AOR, SA etc) so assuming it takes one year from now plus or minus to get my COPR, a safe prediction of when I would land should be June 2022. A lot could change by then.

But I do hope the situation gets better and the hotel quarantine order gets rolled back. If I could save $2K I would...

 

[armoured]

But I do hope the situation gets better and the hotel quarantine order gets rolled back. If I could save $2K I would...

I repeat my constant mantra: it is NOT $2000. It is 'up to' $2000. From what I've heard, for most it is turning out to be less (quite a bit less).

I'm very much hoping it gets rolled back, less because of the expense but because I know my daughter would go bonkers if stuck in a single room for 3 days. (Which means I will go bonkers...)

But I don't actually expect it to be lifted by mid/late summer when we plan to travel.

 

[kanislupos]

I repeat my constant mantra: it is NOT $2000. It is 'up to' $2000. From what I've heard, for most it is turning out to be less (quite a bit less).

I'm very much hoping it gets rolled back, less because of the expense but because I know my daughter would go bonkers if stuck in a single room for 3 days. (Which means I will go bonkers...)

But I don't actually expect it to be lifted by mid/late summer when we plan to travel.

My bad, I meant $2K in my current currency! Oh boy, I do hope for the best for you and for us!
3 days in a room alone, my hyper ass would go insane too lol
I'm living in Singapore, and currently travellers are to undergo 14 or 21 day quarantine depending on where they come from, and flights from India are barred... for the forseeable future.

 

[armoured]

Hmm...... I wonder why the government won 't release the data on why so many travelers are allowed to skip the quarantine hotels.
Maybe they are special?

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/almost-a-third-of-international-air-travellers-allowed-to-skip-quarantine-hotel-but-government-wont-say-why

This is yet another example of Really Bad Journalism - in my view. (Why is it always the post and its brethren? Politics?)

They completely miss the point and never ask the question (or ignore it) one of the very first things one learns in public policy/statistics and related: what is the denominator? (Are we comparing like to like?)

One-third sounds like a big number (as does the number in the article, 88,000). But the comparison really has to be made against something else - in this case, for example, how many travellers were arriving before these measures were brought in, and over what period of time. (This is not a perfect comparison either, it's actually much more complex)

The figure I remember for Pearson Airport alone pre-covid was 100,000 arrivals per day. If that 88k arrivals not going into hotel quarantine is over three months ... well you can see the point. (Proper comparison would be during covid but before the hotel policy, I'm just trying to give a sense of scale).

I don't mind them questioning and raising the point - and it is a serious gap that PHAC doesn't give some breakdown or info. But the one-third itself doesn't mean much of anything.

If you wanted to guess at how many infectious people being let in, okay, let's take 1-2% infection rate - 2% probably at high end - that would be ~1500 infectious cases. Over two-three months, it's not nothing, but it's actually quite a small number compared to eg Ontario with 2-3000 cases a day.

(There are a whole lot of other questions that PHAC could clarify that are REALLY relevant - for example, if a lot of this is air crews, government, military, and a few other categories - are they ALREADY doing some kind of quarantine regime i.e. outside of the hotel policy? Do those other categories also have some enhanced testing regime? Contact tracing? etc. 1500 more infectious cases might seem like a lot, but if they are already and were before doing more serious isolaiton than the hotel requirement, it might mean a much lower prob of transmission to the community, which is what we should be worried about.

Unfortunately PHAC's lack of actual figures leaves it to the Post to write more fear-mongering articles that fail to even ask the question "what's the denominator, Kenneth?*")

*Apologies for the obscure REM reference.

 

[canadan_]

I repeat my constant mantra: it is NOT $2000. It is 'up to' $2000. From what I've heard, for most it is turning out to be less (quite a bit less).

For reference, my partner just returned to Canada and is currently in her hotel quarantine. She paid $1089, so nearly half of the ‘up to $2000’ and, at least in her experience, the room is fairly decent even if she’d prefer to have avoided it all together!

 

[armoured]

For reference, my partner just returned to Canada and is currently in her hotel quarantine. She paid $1089, so nearly half of the ‘up to $2000’ and, at least in her experience, the room is fairly decent even if she’d prefer to have avoided it all together!

Thank you for the info/experience. We're travelling with a family of five, so it will be a bit of a hit regardless, even if lower rates for some sharing of rooms - but a lot less than that headline figure.

 

[canuck78]

Thank you for the info/experience. We're travelling with a family of five, so it will be a bit of a hit regardless, even if lower rates for some sharing of rooms - but a lot less than that headline figure.

Given the recent comments from the medical officer of health in Peel about making sure quarantine hotels and border controls are more effective and closer to Australia/ NZ/some Asian countries once we have our community spread is better under control, we may be moving towards a better and longer quarantine program that is run by public health not the hotels. There are too many loopholes and for some crazy reason we are still not screening quarantine plans and travelers are going home to quarantine with non-travelers. Think we have only seen the beginning of the Asian covid explosion. Many of these countries were able to control the wild type variant much better than Europe and North America but the variants are going to overwhelm the populations.

 

[canuck78]

I read that they extended it till the end of May for now. I really don’t want to spend extra money for nothing

If anything hotel quarantine may get more strict once we get our community spread under control.

 

[armoured]

Given the recent comments from the medical officer of health in Peel about making sure quarantine hotels and border controls are more effective and closer to Australia/ NZ/some Asian countries once we have our community spread is better under control, we may be moving towards a better and longer quarantine program that is run by public health not the hotels.

No opinion on the likelihood of more strict requirements; but I don't think the Peel medical officer has a direct say in the matter. That said, I'll take his opinion over Doug Ford's any day.

 

[canuck78]

So my local MP constituent representative has been helping us out along the way (truly believe he helped us get from app submitted to CoPR in exactly 9 months to the day, while others s don't seem to have moved nearly as quickly).

Anyways, this person called me today to check in and see if we've booked tickets yet (we haven't). As we were talking, I was asking about the 3 day hotel quarantine situation and the high costs. He mentioned to me that it might be worth trying to avoid it altogether if possible. He was speaking off the record, and mentioned that he has had constituents pick up their spouse directly from the airport, and have a real solid quarantine plan in place as well as claim that there was no vacancies at the hotels available.
Of course, he also urged that I have a plan B ready (have a reservation for an approved hotel on stand-by) in case immigration is showing no signs of budging. But he recommended we try it out not only because it's over-priced, but because of the risk my wife would be putting herself in by going to these hotels where people seem to be getting infected at an alarmingly high rate.
Also, i do have a home of my own and i'm taking the 14 days off work to quarantine with my wife, and our quarantine plan is pretty solid. My MP rep even recommended I have my own negative test to bring to the airport.

What do you guys think about this? is it too risky?

Can't believe our government is actually encouraging people to avoid hotel quarantine. Would add that quarantining with a non-traveler is not n effective quarantine plan and reinforces why we need a different plan. This is how whole families have gotten infected or worse how families have spread covid into the community while not only quarantining with a traveler but also going out into the community. In some provinces, like in the Maritimes, you can not quarantine with anyone who you have not traveled with. One of the reasons they have had better control over covid and just quarantine 101. Before people say people are willing to risk being exposed to covid, it is about saving our healthcare system. One extra case, could mean one extra hospital bed or even worse unnecessary death or longterm health issues.

Not sure if your MP understands covid. Proving that you don't have covid would be an argument why you shouldn't be quarantining with your spouse. Why would we want to risk infecting someone who is currently negative.

 

[canuck78]

No opinion on the likelihood of more strict requirements; but I don't think the Peel medical officer has a direct say in the matter. That said, I'll take his opinion over Doug Ford's any day.

He shut down Amazon so although he doesn't have control of the airports most of the quarantine hotels and Pearson are in his municipality so he can do a lot. If someone is talking about this publicly you know this is being discussed behind closed doors. The last thing Peel or the GTA wants is to get community spread somewhat under control and then let it explode again. Would add that he seems to have some logic and is willing to take decisive action with the Ontario medical officers can't see to do. Think people need to realize that covid isn't even close to being done.

 

[armoured]

Can't believe our government is actually encouraging people to avoid hotel quarantine.

One MP, let alone one staffer in an MP's constituency office, is not "the government." (Let alone whether that MP is even a liberal MP, given the other dumb things some MPs have said...)

But you are absolutely right that neither an MP nor an MP's staffer of any party should be providing such bad advice.

 

[valvlad]

i really dont get why i should spend extra money on 3 days quarantine if i will be quarantining at home for other 14 days. like i could just come straight home and sit there for 14 days.
i will also be travelling with my cat, so very inconvenient and stressful for me and her lol
they anyways won't let me into the plane with a positive covid test which i do prior to boarding.... stupid

p.s. won't be travelling till November (the earliest) so hope it will be over then

 

[armoured]

i really dont get why i should spend extra money on 3 days quarantine if i will be quarantining at home for other 14 days. like i could just come straight home and sit there for 14 days.

At some point, "it is what it is."

If you want, you could blame 'other people' for not quarantining properly, or Ontario for not enforcing, or the feds for [something], or general fecklesness, or 'the Gummint', or the Illuminati.

It's clearly true that if everyone quarantined (or were made to quarantine), at home, perfectly, with no-one else around, it would probably not be necessary. Alas, that is not the case.