We are nowhere near ready for U.S. visitors
Until they get a handle on the spreading virus, they cannot be allowed to come here
There’s something I suspect Canadians fear far more than COVID-19 and it’s not climate change, economic collapse or recent reports about a potential case of bubonic plague in China.
It’s our neighbours; specifically, the prospect that they will regain the right to visit us. In late May, a poll conducted by the Association for Canadian Studies indicated that 47 per cent of Canadians wanted the U.S.-Canada border to remain closed until the end of the year. On Tuesday, according to a new Nanos Research survey, that number had grown significantly, to 81 per cent.
In other words, we may have reached the point in the coronavirus epic where Canadians fear incoming Americans more than they fear the virus itself. There’s good reason for this. At a news conference on Monday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the following: “I think the world is looking at us as a leader in COVID-19.” She said this in reference to America’s “low case mortality rate” and the “extraordinary work we’ve done on therapeutics and getting PPE (personal protective equipment).”
But many interpreted McEnany’s statement another way: the United States is indeed a world leader — in rising infection and inadequate government response. Contrary to the press secretary’s confident remarks, according to a report from
Johns Hopkins University, the United States has the ninth highest COVID-19 mortality rate worldwide per 100,000 residents — just two places behind Sweden, a country that forewent lockdown measures to notoriously poor results.
More than 2.5 million people have tested positive for the virus in the U.S. and 130,000 have perished. According to data from last week, cases are rising in a total of 40 U.S. states. You may have seen a pretty alarming map of North America recently — also from Johns Hopkins University — showing the stark contrast between case numbers in the United States and Canada.
Whereas the map of Canada is lightly decorated in small red circles — a visual representation of cases — the map of the United States is a sea of red. Add to this already dire situation, a sizable backlash movement to wearing masks in the United States, a president more interested in spewing racism on Twitter than fighting the virus, and it’s no wonder Canadians are overwhelmingly opposed to opening the U.S.-Canada border to non-essential travel.
The question is how and when will we warm up to the idea? If a humane, fact-subscribing, reasonable person was leading the United States, the answer might be sooner than later. But in light of the U.S. administration’s abysmal pandemic response and mixed messaging, the answer isn’t even conceivable.
There are calls in Canada and the U.S. to gradually reopen the border or at the very least, to craft a plan for reopening. But based on every bit of evidence at our disposal, we shouldn’t be entering any phase in the reopening process but the watching and waiting patiently phase — and we should stay there until the map mentioned above looks drastically different.
Even if you’re of the mind that we must reopen sooner than later for economic reasons, what, honestly, is the point of this approach if we have to close back up again due to an outbreak? Though it may be painful, why not take an extra cautious, long-view method so that when we do reopen we can actually stay that way?
For now, all we can do is hope our government prevents our neighbours from flocking to our borders. Unfortunately, our being boring won’t cut it anymore.
It doesn’t matter how many internal debates we have about our national character (for example, our tendency to highlight America’s ills instead of looking inward at our own), nor how many antimask yahoos exist within our own borders (more than a few, we learned this month).
In the minds of many Americans, we live in an eternally polite, enlightened, sparsely populated, conflict-free paradise. All the myths about our country that made it uncool in pre-pandemic times are what make it more attractive than ever today. It’s ironic: for once we are the place to be and we can’t even enjoy it.