Canada bans flights from India and Pakistan for 30 days

Federal ministers Omar Alghabra (transport), Patty Hajdu (health), Bill Blair (public safety and emergency preparedness), Dominic LeBlanc (intergovernmental affairs), and Marco Mendicino (immigration, refugees and citizenship) held a virtual news conference to announce that the federal government is suspending all passenger flights from India and Pakistan effective at 11:30 pm for the next 30 days.

Cargo flights will still be allowed to arrive in Canada, particularly to ensure shipments of vaccines and personal protective equipment can continue.

More than 300,000 people were diagnosed in India today, its highest single-day total to date.

India is also seeing rising case counts, particularly in western India, of what is being called a “double mutant” variant of COVID-19 – officially known as B.1.617. And this variant – although not officially recognised as a Variant of Concern (VOC) by Health Canada – has already made its way to Canada with 39 confirmed cases of the B.1.617 variant in British Columbia and now most recently, Quebec has now reported one case.

Some experts are saying that the B.1.617 decreases the ability of antibodies to bind to the spike protein of the virus, making vaccines less effective.

The new strain has also been reported in other countries including the UK, Australia, Germany, Singapore and the United States.

It gets the double-mutant moniker due to a pair of mutations that the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is saying are immune escape and increased infectivity.

Meanwhile, at least 32 flights from India and two from Pakistan have landed in Canada in the last two weeks carrying dozens of passengers who have later tested positive for COVID-19. This has raised a flag with health officials, government officials including Brampton mayor Patrick Brown, and Canadians on social media.

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown has been very outspoken with the media about not only the need to ban flights from specific countries but the need to shut Canadian airports down. completely aside from from flights. Mayor Brown had also posted one simple, powerful statement on Twitter: “Close the airports.”

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