Starting Nov. 30, 2021, Canadian residents who are fully immunized against COVID-19 will be able to take short trips out of the country of 72 hours or less without needing proof of a negative test for the virus for re-entry.
The changes to Canada's COVID-19-related travel rules were announced by the federal government on Nov. 19.
A month earlier, V.I.A. polled readers and found that more than half the local respondents- nearly 54 per cent - said they had no plans on crossing the border into the U.S. anytime soon, despite the States opening up to non-essential visitors.
Nearly 30 per cent of local respondents at the time said, however, they were waiting until the feds dropped the policy mandating Canadian residents returning home had to provide proof of a negative PCR COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of arrival at the Canadian border.
That requirement made short trips over the border a challenge, considering the cost and logistics of securing a test in Canada before even leaving.
Recently we asked V.I.A. readers if the relaxed rules had changed their interest in making short trips out of the country, and this time most locals fell into either of two camps: "Absolutely, the testing was the only thing holding me back" (34.08%) and "No, I still have no plans to travel, even for a trip under 72hrs" (31.59%).
Just 3.98% of local poll respondents indicated they had already made a trip and complied with testing requirements, while 7.46% said they would not travel because they are not vaccinated.
Nealy 23 per cent of Vancouverites polled said they remain uncertain if travel outside Canada was in their immediate future.
Vancouver Is Awesome polled 978 Vancouver Is Awesome readers and asked the question: Canada has dropped the COVID testing requirement for short cross-border trips. Does this mean you'll take a trip sooner than planned?
The poll ran from 11/19/2021 to 11/26/2021. Of the 978 votes, we can determine that 402 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 +/- 3.13%, 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.
