Ontario Premier Doug Ford is again asking the Federal Government to fix it's "weak border" to stop the spread of COVID, including implementing the current, mandatory 3 day hotel quarantine to land border crossings.
At a press conference Thursday afternoon Ford said "there are two sets of rules right now, one for the people who can afford a private jet and one for the rest of us. We have private jets landing all over the province at smaller airports from Hawaii, Arizona and other sunny destinations. If you can afford a private jet, you get to skip the quarantine."
The comment drew criticism from Intensive care physician at Toronto's Michael Garron Hospital Dr. Michael Warner who has been very vocal about COVID throughout the pandemic.
In a tweet Thursday afternoon, Warner said
"Of the > 30 people I have seen die of #COVID in ICU and >100 I have treated with this disease, none had returned to Canada on a private plane...or any plane for that matter. Most got #COVID at work, from a close contact or due to lack of access to timely vaccination."
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, travel continues to remain under 2% of overall cases across the country:
- From February 22, 2021 to May 4, 2021, a total of 431,109 tests were completed at air and land borders and of these, 6,273 (1.5% were positive).
- From February 22, 2021 to May 4, 2021, 392 of 120,453 tests (0.3%) completed at land border crossings were positive.
- From February 22, 2021 to May 4, 2021, 5,465 of 285,456 tests (1.9%) completed at air border crossings were positive.
Land border crossings are responsible for less than half a percentage of cases in Canada.
"Justin Trudeau is responsible for two things only through this whole pandemic is to make sure we have enough vaccines, and we saw what happened there," said Ford.
"Now we're getting a few more vaccines which is good, we're grateful for that and we're getting them out. And to make sure we secure the borders, and it's just not happening."
A link to the press conference can be found here.
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