Trudeau says no to border opening

In an interview on Global News Radio yesterday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the Liberal government does not intend to open the border until the U.S. gets Covid-19 under control.

The border closure has been extended six times on a monthly basis since it was first closed on March 21; the current closure was scheduled to lapse or renew the middle of next week. Trudeau said the Canadian government believes “the United States is not in a place where we would feel comfortable reopening those borders.”

Although both countries are experiencing a resurgence in cases, the situation in the U.S. is much more dire as it surpasses 8 million known cases. On October 14, the U.S. reported 59,713 new cases with a weekly daily average of 53,120 cases, up 23 percent from two weeks prior. There have been 217,300 confirmed Covid-19 fatalities to date and the country can expect another 177,000 deaths by the end of January 2021, according to projections made by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Canada, with a population roughly 11 percent of the U.S.’s, has had 189,387 cases and 16,264 deaths. Considered on cases per 100,000 population, Canada has had 511 cases versus 2,412 for the U.S.