Canada will likely drop the vaccine requirement for people who enter Canada by the end of then month an official familiar with the matter has told The Associated Press. Filling out information in the unpopular ArriveCan app will also no longer be required.
Other media outlets, including the Toronto Star and Global News, are making similar claims.
AP’s source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau needs to give final sign off on it but that the government will likely be dropping the requirement as well as ending random COVID-19 testing at airports.
Reports earlier in the week suggested the government was considering whether to renew COVID-19 vaccine mandates and mandatory random testing for travellers, which are set to expire Sept. 30, but that a final decision had not been made.
That decision to renew the current restrictions or let them expire will be approved by federal cabinet ministers who are expected to meet in Ottawa early next week.
It is not immediately known whether the US would follow suit and a make a similar move.
Under the soon-to-expire rules, foreign nationals are typically not allowed to travel to Canada unless they have completed a primary series of an approved COVID-19 vaccine, unless they qualify for an exception.
Unvaccinated travellers who are allowed to enter Canada are subject to mandatory arrival tests and a 14-day quarantine.
Vaccinated travellers may also be selected for mandatory random testing – a system that public health officials have used as an “early warning system” for new variants of the virus entering the country.
The government contracted companies to run off-site test clinics in an attempt to alleviate congestion at Canada’s international airports.
The federal government has gradually scaled back COVID-19 travel restrictions over the course of the spring and summer, as booster shots became more widely available in Canada.
Cabinet “suspended” vaccine mandates for domestic travel in June, but Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc warned at the time COVID-19 vaccinations could become a requirement again if cases surged in the fall.
Public health officials and infectious disease experts have warned of a potentially large wave of new COVID-19 cases this month as students return to school.
But the Public Health Agency of Canada has also said the country is transitioning to a new, more sustainable phase of the pandemic.
Dr. Andrew Morris, an infectious disease specialist at the University Health Network and Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, as well as a professor in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine, said removing the vaccine requirement should have been done a long time ago.
“Zero benefit to ensure people vaccinated. It doesn’t keep cases nor variants out,” he said.