Concerned about the lack of border control with Ontario, Montreal’s public health has expressed concern “for the Ministry of Health and Social Security”.

Louise Leduc
Press

This is what Montreal Public Health has indicated by email Press, “This file is currently in the hands of the government of Quebec and its Canadian counterparts”.

Montreal’s Regional Director of Public Health, D^Again Mylène Drouin also spoke about it in an interview with LCN on Tuesday.

“I wouldn’t say we should close the border completely, but it certainly has to be done with Ontario,” Dee said^Again Doreen, Tuesday, indicates to be particularly concerned about the Brazilian version.

Between Quebec and Ontario (between Quebec and British Columbia), we enter and leave, without the need for interinstitutional quarantine or testing, lame d.^Again Doreen.

At the moment, there is still no blocking on the interprovincial bridges connecting Gatinew and Ottawa, contrary to what happened in the spring of 2020, and there is no indication that anyone will be there, or anywhere else, in the short term.

This week is spring break in Ontario, where the situation has spiraled out of control and there is no sign of the epidemic diminishing.

Note that last spring as well as this year, New Brunswick closed its borders.

At Trudeau Airport, many daily flights arrive from Toronto as well as from Vancouver.

Even in relation to international travel, epidemiologist Jean-Paul Sausi regrets that we have been slow to act. In his opinion, “if previously quarantine measures were strengthened and reinforced at the border, the circulation of the Brazilian version in the country could have slowed, or even avoided”.

Whistler, the Canadian epicenter of the Brazilian version

In British Columbia, there have been some 900 reported cases of the Brazilian version, of which about a quarter are from the famous ski resort Whistler. The location thus became home to the largest outbreak of the Brazilian version in the world outside of Brazil, which is widely reported in foreign media.

Given the situation, all adult residents of Whistler, as well as those working there, are urged to go for the vaccine as part of a large-scale offensive that has been deployed as an urgency .

The ski resort was closed in early April, and British Columbia officials were discouraging anyone from traveling to Whistler.

Many experts draw a parallel in recent times between the outbreak and what happened at another famous ski resort in Ischal in Austria, which delayed quarantines and traffic restrictions in March 2020.

In September, Austrian courts announced that they had opened an investigation into the outbreak. Tyrolian officials were criticized from all around by frequent tourists from all over Europe for not closing the station adequately.

Iceland and Norway speculated that their first patient had been infected in Ischgal, known more for its bucolic setting than for its festive atmosphere.