Here’s a general update from Canada and around the world. People returning to British Columbia from international travel are now legally required to present self-isolation plans or they will be placed in quarantine, said Premier John Horgan. He said the government will have officials in place starting Friday at Vancouver International Airport and major land border crossings to make sure the plans are complete.
Officials have prohibited gatherings of more than 50 people in one place, including restaurants, schools, places of worship, theatres, casinos, sports arenas and outdoor venues.
All provincial parks are now closed.
Albertans are prohibited from attending public or private recreational and entertainment facilities. Restaurants have been ordered closed, except for takeout or delivery. Casinos are closed.
Vehicle access to provincial parks and public lands is prohibited to visitors.
In Saskatchewan nightclubs, bars and lounges are closed, but they are allowed to provide takeout food or alcohol. Recreational and entertainment facilities are closed. Personal service providers such as tattooists, hairdressers, estheticians and relaxation masseuses cannot operate.Dental, optometrist, chiropractic and podiatry clinics are closed – except for emergencies.
Manitoba has limited public gatherings to no more than 10 people, down from an earlier limit of 50. It includes any indoor or outdoor spot, places of worship or family events such as weddings and funerals.
Non-essential businesses have been ordered to close. Salons, spas, bars and other establishments will be closed starting Wednesday. Restaurants can remain open for takeout or delivery only. Bingo and gaming venues as well as wellness centres and gyms are closed. The closures do not affect health-care facilities, government services and other institutions.
In Ontario all bars and restaurants, except for takeout and delivery, have been closed. Also closed are recreational facilities, public libraries, private schools, licensed child-care centres, movie theatres and concert venues. Any public events of more than five people, including parades, events and services at places of worship, are prohibited.
Provincial parks are closed and the city of Toronto has also shut down playgrounds, sports fields, off-leash dog parks, skateboard parks and picnic areas. Parking lots attached to parks are closed.
To give retail employees a break, stores in Quebec are closed on Sundays in April, with only pharmacies, gas stations, convenience stores and takeout restaurants remaining open on those days.
In New Brunswick, businesses serving food and beverages have been restricted to takeout and delivery. Lounges and clubs are forbidden from allowing customers to enter. Customers are not allowed to enter retail businesses, unless they serve food, medication, fuel or other essential supplies.
Any unnecessary travel into New Brunswick is prohibited. All playgrounds in the province are closed, but some public parks and walking trails remain open as long as physical distancing measures are followed.
Casinos have closed and no business is allowed to operate a video lottery terminal in Nova Scotia. Restaurants are restricted to takeout and delivery service only. Drinking establishments are closed.
Prince Edward Islanders must refrain from attending any public gatherings and a closure of libraries, child-care facilities, gyms and schools.
In Newfoundland and Labrador It includes the closure of most businesses – with the exception of grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and other stores considered essential. Gatherings of more than 10 people are not allowed. That includes funerals and weddings.
Grocery stores and big box stores will be allowed to open this year on Good Friday, which is normally closed as a public holiday, to prevent them from becoming too busy as people shop for Easter weekend. Anyone arriving from outside the province is required to self-isolate for 14 days.
Yukon residents flying into Canada with COVID-19 symptoms must quarantine at their arrival destination, and those without symptoms are ordered to self-isolate for 14 days when they get home. The government has placed enforcement officers at the Whitehorse airport and at its boundaries to get details of travellers’ self-isolation plans, their contact information and to look for any symptoms of COVID-19. Anyone who arrives in the territory from outside its boundary to self-isolate for 14 days.
Travel through all points of entry into the territory – both air and road – is prohibited. The orders exclude essential service workers such as medical professionals or emergency services. The government has closed bars and limited social gatherings to 10 people or less.
Many businesses, including tour operators, gyms, museums and theatres, have been ordered to close in the Northwest Territories. There is a mandatory 14-day self-isolation period at one of four locations in southern Canada for any resident that wants to return to Nunavut. The territory has asked that all indoor and outdoor gatherings be cancelled – regardless of size or number.
Critical employees who need to return to work must apply for an exemption. All non-essential medical travel has been cancelled. Public gatherings, including at playgrounds or parks and at religious, cultural or spiritual services is prohibited.
Puerto Rico‘s governor on Wednesday asked federal officials to ban all flights from US cities with a high number of coronavirus cases to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the US territory. The petition by Gov. Wanda Vazquez to the Federal Aviation Administration came after officials accused some visitors of taking medicine to lower their fevers to avoid being placed in quarantine by National Guard troops screening people at the island’s main international airport.
At least two passengers from New York who lowered their fever with medication are now hospitalized on the island with COVID-19, according to the National Guard. Vazquez asked to ban flights from New York, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Illinois.
Joel Piza, interim executive director of Puerto Rico’s Ports Authority, said in a statement that those flights would be rescheduled when there’s a drop in cases in those states. It’s unclear how many flights would be affected if the FAA agrees to the temporary ban.
British and American passengers on a coronavirus-ravaged Antarctica cruise liner have been told they must until they test negative for the virus before being repatriated. The Australians were to be flown home yesterday.
Approximately 128 of 217 people on board the Greg Mortimer, which was stranded off the coast of Uruguay on its way to the Antarctic, have tested positive. Six of those, three Australians, two Filipinos and a Briton, have been taken off for treatment in the capital Montevideo. The six being treated in private clinics in Montevideo were in a stable condition. Two were in intensive care. European and American passengers on the Greg Mortimer must ‘wait until they test negative’ before organizing their repatriation via Sao Paulo, Brazil, the ship’s owner said.
The cruise ship’s owner, Aurore Expeditions, has ‘contracted a medical plane… to repatriate the Australian and New Zealander passengers,’ Uruguay’s foreign ministry said, adding that the plane had been given permission to arrive on Thursday.
Several hotels in New York City city are helping with hospital bed overflow, but the landmark Four Seasons Hotel has dedicated itself exclusively to housing doctors, nurses and other medical professionals during the pandemic.
At the entrance, two nurses, wearing N95 masks, take the temperatures of all guests, ask questions about symptoms over the past 72 hours and if they’ve washed their hands. Keys are placed in envelopes on a table and guests go directly to their rooms, with elevators carrying just one passenger at a time. Others wait on taped Xs on the floor, placed six feet apart. Minibars have been taken out of guest rooms and rooms are provided with extra linens and towels. On every nightstand is not a piece of chocolate from turndown service but a bottle of hand sanitizer. Guests stay a minimum of seven days and dirty items are collected only after they check out and the room has been fumigated.
Of the hotel’s 368 rooms, only 225 will have guests to limit crowding.
Two months ago, the Miami Beach Convention Center hosted tens of thousands of cheering and laughing Super Bowl guests visiting the NFL’s travelling museum and interactive displays. Now it is filled around-the-clock with members of the Army Corps of Engineers performing the grim task of setting up a 450-bed overflow hospital in case South Florida facilities become overwhelmed with coronavirus patients.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said it would be ready by April 21, when models show the disease could be nearing its statewide peak. He said the hospital could be expanded to hold 1,000 beds if needed.
A mayor in Hawaii is calling Florida man accused of trying to flout Hawaii’s traveller quarantine a “covidiot.” Bobby Edwards, 31, of Boynton Beach, Florida, was arrested last week after police said he landed on the island without proof of having accommodations set up. A statewide order requires people arriving in the islands to quarantine for 14 days. Edwards “was exhibiting belligerent behaviour toward airport personnel and toward officers during his arrest,” police said, he was, “also showing significant signs of intoxication and was not being co-operative.”
Two other men were also arrested last week for violating the self-quarantine order. All three men have been returned to the mainland US.
Short-term rental property owners in Pennsylvania continue to advertise lodging in defiance of Gov. Tom Wolf’s coronavirus shutdown order, administration officials said Wednesday. Wolf banned short-term residential rentals last week after state lawmakers in the Pocono Mountains complained that property owners had been trying to entice travellers from virus hotspots New Jersey and New York.
Dennis M. Davin, secretary of the Department of Community and Economic Development, wrote to Airbnb Inc. and Expedia Group, which owns VRBO, asking them to tell hosts who are violating the shutdown order that they are not allowed to operate.
Davin said the administration is seeking voluntary compliance but warned of “significant consequences” for short-term rental owners if they don’t stop advertising availability.
Airbnb has said its hosts may not reference “COVID-19,” “coronavirus” or “quarantine” in listing titles, advertise themselves as virus-free or encourage guests to ignore travel advisories. Expedia has offered similar guidance. Both platforms say violators can have their listings removed.
Mexico‘s Labor Department said Wednesday the country has lost 346,748 jobs since mid-March due to the economic impact of the new coronavirus and distancing measures imposed to fights its spread.
The biggest job losses occurred in the heavily tourism-dependent Caribbean coastal state of Quintana Roo, which lost almost 64,000 jobs. The state is home to resorts like Cancun and Playa del Carmen, which have been hit hard by recommendations that people limit travel.
Police wearing protective gear boarded a cruise ship to seize evidence and question crew members of the vessel linked to hundreds of coronavirus infections and 15 deaths across Australia. About 2,700 passengers disembarked from the ship on March 19 in Sydney and it has since become the largest source of coronavirus infections in Australia. More than 600 cases of COVID-19 and 15 deaths are linked the to the ship, the Ruby Princess.
New South Wales police said it’s expected to remain in port for 10 days with its 1,040 crew undergoing medical assessments. About 200 crew have shown symptoms of COVID-19, while 18 have tested positive for the virus that causes it. The workers remaining on the ship are from 50 countries. The ship’s owner, Princess Cruises, is a subsidiary of the Carnival Corporation.
A cruise passenger has filed a class action lawsuit against Carnival owned Costa Cruise Lines, accusing it of hiding a coronavirus infection and endangering the health of more than 2,000 fellow passengers. Paul Turner filed the complaint in Florida alleging Costa allowed new passengers to embark after a passenger on a previous cruise was evacuated due to Covid-19 symptoms. The suit claims the ship did not reject passengers who potentially showed symptoms of the coronavirus. After the outbreak became known, the ship was “denied entry to multiple different ports-of-call by the government of the respective countries.”
IATA estimates up to 25 million jobs are at risk from the collapse of the travel market due to the coronavirus pandemic. Director general Alexandre De Juniac said airlines will collapse if forced to refund all customers. Airlines simply cannot afford to issue all refunds, and governments need to act fast to help carriers.
“The key element for us is to avoid running out of cash so refunding the cancelled ticket for us is almost unbearable financially speaking,” De Juniac said.
He said about one-third of 2.7 million direct jobs in the airline sector had already been lost or were temporarily furloughed. IATA said there are about US $35 billion worth of tickets that are due for refunds through the second quarter. The industry group has been pleading with governments to not force airlines to mandate cash refunds. The US transportation department has ordered airlines to issue refunds for cancelled flights after a flood of consumer complaints.
The European Union is calling for the extension of travel restrictions to 30 European countries for tourism or non-essential business purposes and recommending an extension of the measures blocking most arrivals in Europe until May 15 to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
The restrictions, introduced last month for an initial period of 30 days, apply to people, including US nationals, who might want to travel to Europe’s 26-nation ID check-free area plus Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, and Romania. The commission says action at the EU’s external borders can only be effective if all countries concerned take the same measures.
European plane-maker Airbus said it is reducing production by about a third as demand for aircraft and travel plummets due to the coronavirus pandemic. The company said it delivered 122 planes in the first quarter, but 60 remain undelivered as airlines asked to suspend orders while facing huge costs related to a near-total shutdown of air travel.
A federal judge has rejected a government attempt to block Sabre Corp. from buying Farelogix Inc. in a US $360 million deal combining two companies that provide information about airline tickets to travel agents.
A US District Court Judge in Delaware said in a ruling late Tuesday that the Justice Department had failed during an eight-day trial to prove that the deal would substantially reduce competition. The Justice Department sued to block the deal last August. It accused Sabre of buying Farelogix to eliminate a competitor who had more modern technology, and said a merger would lead to higher prices and less innovation.
Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim said the government will review the ruling and consider how to respond.
Texas-based Sabre said it will wait for a final decision from the U.K.’s antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, which has previously signalled that blocking the merger would be the only effective answer to its concern about competition.
The trial ended in early February, and the judge noted that the travel industry has since been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. He said he did not – and could not – consider the possible impact of the virus outbreak in reaching his decision.