Due to an increasing number of COVID-19 cases, Canadian authorities have banned all passenger flights from Pakistan and India for 30 days.
Canadian transportation Minister Omar Alghabra announced that “given the higher number of cases of Covid-19 detected in air passengers arriving in Canada from India and Pakistan, I am suspending all commercial and private passenger flights arriving in Canada from India and Pakistan for 30 days.”
“This is a temporary measure, while we assess the evolving situation and determine appropriate measures going forward,” he added.
The ban will not be imposed on the cargo flights to ensure the supply of vaccinations, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and other essential goods in the time of crises.
Almost 20 per cent of the travellers coming to Canada are Indians with half of them testing positive, said the report.
The transportation minister further added that epidemiologists and researchers are trying to make sense of the new variants. Meanwhile, halting travel activities is imperative to curb the trajectory of the cases.
According to data available with the Canadian health authorities, almost 18 flights from Dehli and two from Lahore that arrived in Toronto and Vancouver in the past month have had at least one passenger on board who tested positive for COVID-19.
Besides, Canada last December briefly suspended flights from Britain over concerns about outbreaks of a Covid variant.
Moreover, on Thursday, parliament voted unanimously to urge the government to ban non-essential flights from Covid hotspots where variants have surged, including India and Brazil.
Several dozen cases of Indian variant have already been identified in Canada, say health authorities in Canada.
Some countries have taken similar steps to prevent worsening the outbreaks due to this variant: the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced that they will suspend all flights from India.
All travellers to Canada are already subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine. They must also present a negative COVID test before boarding an international flight, and another upon arrival in Canada.
