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With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers now banning flights from seven African countries in a bid to control the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, will they finally admit those who have called for a flight ban? from China at the start of the pandemic were right and they were wrong?
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Will they apologize for wrongly calling them racist and admit that their own claims at the start of the pandemic that travel bans were ineffective were false?
If the travel bans – implemented at least until January 31, 2022 – are justified now to protect Canadians, then they were justified at the start of the pandemic and the federal government failed to protect us by failing to protect us. acting only months later, at random, when it was too late.
On Friday, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra and Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos announced that foreign nationals traveling to South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Namibia during the Last 14 days are prohibited from entering Canada.
Canadians who have been in these countries in the past 14 days will face improved testing, screening and quarantine measures, regardless of their immunization status or if they have contracted and recovered from COVID, when they will return to Canada.
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They must obtain, within 72 hours of departure, a valid negative COVID-19 test in a third country, before continuing to Canada.
Upon arrival, they will undergo an immediate test, a second mandatory test on the 8th day after arrival, and a 14-day quarantine period. They will need to remain in a designated quarantine facility to await the first test results and will not be allowed to leave until their quarantine plan has been approved and they have received a negative test result.
Compare these measures to what was requested in a January 2020 petition by relatives living in York Region near Toronto – signed by 10,000 people, many of them of Chinese descent – at the start of the pandemic that was largely condemned at the time by federal, provincial and municipal governments, public health officials, academics and experts.
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In retrospect, what they were asking for, compared to what the Trudeau government is doing today, seems odd in comparison.
After accurately describing the progression of the coronavirus in China at the time and accurately predicting the danger of global spread, the petition concluded:
1. “There is a strong need for the school board (of) to ask students and their families who have returned from China to report to the school and the teacher. The school should continue to monitor the status of students who have recently traveled to China (not just Wuhan, any city in China). Other parents in the class should have the right to know if there are any students in the class (who) have recently returned from China, and have the right to decide to keep their children at home.
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2. “We ask the school board to send a communication to all parents asking students who or whose families have recently returned from China to stay home and be isolated for at least 17 days for the purposes of self-quarantine.
3. “Allow students to wear safety equipment, including breathing masks, during school.
4. “For the safety of children and teachers, the school and teachers should advise students to strictly follow safety guidelines to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus in school. The school should advise staff to do the same.
As history has shown, the organizers of this petition were not racists. They were right.
