01-31-2021, 08:22 PM
(01-31-2021, 04:51 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:(01-31-2021, 02:57 PM)tomh009 Wrote: I agree with ac3r that preventing the virus from getting into Canada at all would have been completely impractical. It was already spreading (outside of China!) in December, long before there were any serious alerts.
That said, much more could have been done to limit its spread within Canada.
"limit"...how about eliminate.
Yes, I'm not suggesting that we could have prevented it from coming here ever, but we could have pursued an extinction policy, we did not. That was a choice.
It was a choice, yes. Travel would have needed to be eliminated (federal government). All returning Canadians would have needed to be in enforced quarantine (federal). COVID tests also for any truck drivers or air crews entering Canada (federal). Hard lockdown in each province (provincial governments). Not sure that we could have realistically implemented this though -- at least implemented successfully.
It worked in NZ and (for the most part) in Australia. But other countries (in Europe) did hard lockdowns and were not able to eliminate the virus. Living on an island does make it easier.