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, Vancouver Is Awesome polled 793 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% 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.
