Dreaming about a road trip south to Disneyland? How about a quick hop over to Bellingham for a Trader Joe's run? The land border between Canada and the U.S. is set to re-open Nov. 8 after a 19-month freeze due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
While Canada has welcomed fully-vaccinated visitors by land from the U.S. since the summer, our neighbours to the south have held out in reciprocating for those seeking to cross for non-essential visits.
While the Americans are keen to welcome anyone with two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine - including mixed doses and those who received AstraZeneca - without a pre-trip negative COVID-19 test, Canadian officials have remained firm in its negative testing requirement for re-entry into the country. That means that even if you plan to make a one-hour trip into Point Roberts to pick up packages or check on your vacation property, Canada will still require you provide proof of having tested negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours prior via a PCR test.
Some travellers may not take issue with the testing requirement if their trip into the U.S. by land will run several days; many Canadian travellers have been able to find free or paid COVID-19 tests at their destination and worked that time and cost into their trip plans. For short trips, Canadians may take the COVID-19 test in Canada prior to departing for a brief trip into the U.S. - provided their return falls within the 72-hour time frame - but those tests can cost around $200.
With the testing requirements in mind, we polled 793 Vancouver Is Awesome readers and asked the question: Will you be driving into the U.S. as soon as the land border re-opens?
Just 13.61% of those polled indicated they intend to make a run for the U.S. border right away, and only 3.22% said they were not fully vaccinated and were unable to cross regardless.
Overwhelmingly, respondents indicated they don't plan to cross. Nearly 30 per cent said they wouldn't cross until Canada removed the barrier of the negative COVID-19 PCR test requirement. However, more than half the V.I.A. readers polled (53.71%) indicated they have no interest in crossing over into the U.S. any time soon.
The poll ran from 10/13/2021 to 10/19/2021. Of the 793 votes, we can determine that 404 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:
Results are based on an online study of adult Vancouver Is Awesome readers that are located in Vancouver. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 3.48%, 19 times out of 20.
Vancouver Is Awesome uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
