Canada has extended its ban on passenger flights from India and Pakistan by 30 days to June 21 as part of a campaign to fight COVID-19, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said on Friday.
Alghabra said Canada had seen “a significant reduction” in coronavirus infections among arriving airline passengers since Ottawa first announced the bans on April 22 as the number of cases in India soared. The move does not affect cargo flights.
“These ongoing measures will remain in place to help protect Canadians and to manage the elevated risk of imported cases of COVID-19 and variants of concern,” he told a briefing.
As vaccinations pick up across Canada, the number of daily new cases has dropped by 25% since last week and it now averages around 5,000, deputy chief public health officer Howard Njoo told the briefing.
The ban on Indian and Pakistani flights is part of a series of restrictions Canada has imposed to lower the transmission of the virus, including curbs on non-essential travel across the long land border with the United States.
Canada said on Thursday that the measure, first applied in March 2020, would be extended by another month to June 21. Government officials said they were in no hurry to open up travel across the border, citing the need to protect public health.
Meanwhile, Colombia has barred non-resident arrivals from India through the end of June in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19 variant B.1.617, the health ministry said on Friday.
The restrictions came into force on Thursday, although travelers who were already in the air or on their journey to Colombia are exempt.
The variant’s potentially higher rates of transmission motivated Colombia’s decision, the ministry in a statement.
Colombia’s restrictions apply to travelers who have been in India within the last 14 days or who had a connecting flight there, the statement said.
Travelers who are exempt from the ban, including diplomats and those with work visas, must present a negative PCR test upon entry, take an additional test within 24 hours of arrival and a third on the seventh day after entry.
They should also be in strict quarantine for 14 days, the statement said.
Thailand sees first local cases of Indian COVID-19 variant
Thailand has detected its first 36 domestically transmitted cases of the highly infectious COVID-19 variant first found in India, authorities said on Friday, a discovery that could complicate efforts to address its most deadly outbreak so far.
All 36 cases with the B.1.617.2 variant were found among people staying in construction workers’ accommodation in the capital Bangkok and included 15 migrant workers, the health ministry said.
Authorities said clusters have been detected in several of the 409 workers camps around the Bangkok, where city authorities say 62,169 workers live, about half of those are migrant workers.