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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/us-canada-border-reopen-1.6208838
U.S. to reopen land border to fully vaccinated Canadians next month | CBC News
Fully vaccinated Canadians will be allowed to enter the United States at land and ferry border crossings starting in early November.
www.cbc.ca
U.S. to reopen land border to fully vaccinated Canadians next month
Land border has been closed to non-essential travel for more than 18 month
Fully vaccinated Canadians will be allowed to enter the United States at land and ferry border crossings starting in early November.
Senior U.S. officials announced Tuesday night a plan to begin reopening the land borders with Canada and Mexico, which have been closed for non-essential travel since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
The U.S. is also awaiting guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) about travellers who received mixed doses of COVID-19 vaccines or the AstraZeneca vaccine. The U.S. has not approved the mixing of vaccine doses or the AstraZeneca vaccine for its own residents.
However, an official on the call noted that the CDC plans to recommend the acceptance of air travellers who have been inoculated with any vaccine approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization, which includes AstraZeneca. The official said a similar rule should be expected at land crossings.
Different measures
The updated rules mean Canadian and U.S. citizens will soon face essentially the same rules when crossing the border after months of different measures at the world's longest international border.
The Canadian government in August reopened its border to fully vaccinated U.S. travellers, which raised repeated questions about why the U.S. did not make the same change.
The U.S. rules have also been described as inconsistent, since Canadians have been allowed to enter the U.S. by air, even for non-essential purposes, for most of the pandemic.
The government officials said the updated regulations reflect the growing uptake in vaccinations across North America.
They noted that nearly 263 million people in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico are now fully vaccinated.
Essential workers crossing the land border, such as truckers, will also face a new vaccine mandate starting sometime in January 2022.
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brief : to give someone detailed instructions or information
inoculate : to give a person or animal a vaccine
refer someone/something to someone/something : to send someone or something to a different place or person for help
span : the length of something / A span is also the distance between two points, esp. between the structures that hold up a bridge
mandate : authority to act in a particular way given to a government or a person, esp. as a result of a vote or ruling