Cross-border travel down even for essential goods

The number of travellers crossing a land border between the U.S. and Canada has fallen dramatically since the border was first closed to non-essential travel in March.

Canadian Border Services Agency says there has been an 85 per cent drop in land border crossing in a one-week period in October compared to the same time last year.

Even the number of truck drivers bringing food and other products across the border, which has continued, has dropped about 10 per cent.

A spokesperson for CBSA would not provide statistics for Coutts border only but provided data for land borders that are open across Canada.

“For operational and security reasons, the CBSA does not provide stats for specific ports of entry.”

At all land borders between the U.S. and Canada, on Oct. 18 this year there were 5,648 truck drivers and on Oct. 20 last year 6,345.

On those two dates the decline in non-commercial highway traffic is even more significant at 96.75 per cent. Oct. 18 this year there were 6,009 travellers and last year on Oct. 20 there were 185,123.

On March 21 this year the federal government officially closed land borders with the U.S. This has been routinely renewed and currently is in place until Nov. 21. There are some special circumstances where travel is allowed and in those cases a 14-day quarantine period is in place.

The federal government recently announced limited exemptions to mandatory quarantine to enable COVIDtesting pilot projects, in coordination with provincial authorities.

One of these pilot projects is at the Coutts border crossing where, since Monday, those allowed to cross the border into Canada have an option to avoid the 14-day quarantine. They can take a COVID-19 test at the border and will still be required to isolate while they await test results, which could be a couple of days. If they test negative they are no longer in quarantine but will be required to take certain precautions such as wear a face mask in public and avoid high-risk groups.

They will also have to agree to a second COVID test on day six or seven. This test would be done at a community pharmacy. Another requirement is daily reporting on their state of health.

Montana has a population, of 1.069 million, roughly a quarter the size of Alberta’s, which is 4.371 million.

Montana has tested about half its population for COVID19 for a total of 501,704.

Alberta has tested a total of 1,789,173 tests.

According to online data 6.68 per cent of tests in Montana are positive and in, Alberta 1.5 per cent.

What is not known is who is being given a test in Montana. If tests are only being done of people with symptoms there is a higher chance of testing positive than if tests are also being done on people who have no symptoms, which has been the case in Alberta.