Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Month added to restrictions along U.S.-Canada border
TORONTO — The Canada-U.S. border will remain closed to nonessential travel for at least another month, Canada’s public safety minister said Friday.
The statement by Bill Blair was made a day after Mexico announced a similar measure for its border with the United States.
The land border restrictions aimed at controlling the coronavirus pandemic were first announced in March and have been renewed monthly.
Canada has flattened the epidemic curve while the U.S. has more confirmed cases and deaths from covid-19 than any other country.
However, in Toronto, health officials said as many as 550 people may have been
exposed to the virus at a strip club last week and urged them to quarantine for 14 days.
Essential cross-border workers like health care professionals, airline crews and truck drivers are still permitted to cross. Much of Canada’s food supply comes from or through the U.S.
Americans who are returning to the United States and Canadians who are returning to Canada also are exempted from the border closure.
Canada sends 75% of its exports to the U.S. and about 18% of American exports go to Canada. The U.S.-Canada border is the world’s longest between two nations.
Separately, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit by an Arizona woman who claimed New York’s 14-day quarantine requirement for travelers from hot spot coronavirus states infringed on her “fundamental right to travel.”
U.S. District Judge David Hurd on Tuesday became at least the second federal judge to rule against challenges to the quarantines first ordered by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in June. The advisory currently covers travelers from 31 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Cynthia Page filed the suit last month, claiming it unfairly stopped her from visiting Brooklyn and helping friends pack up belongings in a house they were preparing to sell. Page asserted that Cuomo’s executive order and the quarantine rules made the trip impossible, which “was and continues to be very upsetting,” according to court papers.
In dismissing the lawsuit, Hurd wrote that people from restricted states remain free to enter New York.
“And whether resident or non-resident, any traveler who completes the quarantine remains completely free to travel freely within the State itself,” Hurd wrote.
Page informed the court Tuesday that she would appeal.
Page’s lawyer, David Yerushalmi, told The New York Post that he thought the judge’s decision “was thoughtful but wrong.”
“Judge Hurd has responded out of the fear of the pandemic but has ignored basic constitutional law,” he said.
EUROPE FLARE-UPS
Globally, new flare-ups of the coronavirus are disrupting the peak summer vacation season across much of Europe, where authorities in some countries are reimposing restrictions on travelers, closing nightclubs again, banning fireworks displays and expanding mask orders even in chic resort areas.
“Unfortunately, this virus doesn’t play ball,” British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told Sky News.
The surges have spread alarm across Europe, which suffered mightily during the spring but appeared in recent months to have largely tamed the coronavirus. The continent’s hardest-hit countries, Britain, Italy, France and Spain, have recorded about 140,000 deaths in all.
In addition to clubs and alcohol-fueled street parties, large family gatherings — usually abounding with hugs and kisses — have been cited as a source of new outbreaks in several European countries.
A new public awareness campaign by Spain’s Canary Islands depicts a family gathering for a grandfather’s birthday, with people taking off masks and embracing. The grandfather ends up in a hospital bed with covid-19.
In France, thousands of vacationing Britons scrambled to return home Friday to avoid having to self-quarantine for 14 days after Britain’s decision to reimpose restrictions on France because of a resurgence of infections there. Ferries added extra trips back to England, and trains were running out of space.
The British government said that it was compelled to impose the quarantine requirement on people returning from France in light of a 66% increase in infections in France in the past week. The requirement applied to anyone returning after 4 a.m. today.
The U.K. move has the potential to upend planned trips, particularly of families during the run-up to schools reopening in September.
TOURISM AFFECTED
The French government has indicated that it will respond in kind to Britain’s decision, further hobbling travel and tourism at a time when the industry is trying to recover from the economic shock of the pandemic.
The Netherlands, Malta, Monaco and the Caribbean islands of Aruba and Turks and Caicos also were added to the U.K.’s quarantine list for the same reason.
Some of the toughest new measures were announced in Spain, which has recorded almost 50,000 confirmed virus cases in the past 14 days.
Health Minister Salvador Illa, after an emergency meeting with regional leaders, said nightclubs nationwide were ordered to close. Visits to nursing homes will be limited to one person a day for each resident for only one hour.
“We can’t be undisciplined,” Illa said.
In Italy, also faced with a surge of cases, seaside towns announced new restrictions, including bans on fireworks at beaches. The moves came just ahead of Italy’s biggest summer holiday, Ferragosto, which millions of Italians celebrate at the seashore, in the mountains or on trips abroad.
The mayor of Anzio banned all overnight access to the beach, while San Felice Circeo, a popular weekend getaway for Romans, ordered masks worn outdoors. On the chic island of Capri, an order requiring masks outdoors from evening to nearly dawn was expanded by the mayor to the entire day.
Masks also are now required in the streets of Amalfi, a picturesque coastal tourist town.
In Greece, authorities strongly recommended people wear masks for a week indoors and out in public areas after returning from domestic vacation destinations with a high coronavirus incidence.
Gatherings of more than nine people were prohibited on two popular Greek resort islands, Paros and Antiparos, and a ban on restaurants, bars and nightclubs operating after midnight was expanded to more parts of the country, including Athens. The steps came as Greece recorded its second-highest daily infection numbers — 254 new cases.
INDIA’S INCREASE
In developments in other parts of the world:
■ India’s death toll overtook Britain’s to become the fourth-highest in the world, with another single-day record increase in cases Friday. The number of dead hit more than 48,000, behind the United States, with over 167,000; Brazil, with more than 105,000; and Mexico, with over 55,000.
■ New Zealand’s government extended a lockdown of its largest city, Auckland, for 12 more days as it tries to stamp out its first domestic outbreak in more than three months, involving 30 people. Until the cluster was discovered Tuesday, New Zealand had gone 102 days with no reports of infections spreading in the community. The only known cases involved travelers arriving from abroad.
■ A man in his 20s became the youngest person to die of the coronavirus in Australia. He was among 14 new deaths and 372 new infections reported by Victoria state health officials in an outbreak centered in Melbourne.
■ South Korea reported 103 new virus cases, one of its biggest daily jumps in months, as officials express concerned that infections are getting out of control in cities. Eighty-three of the new cases were from the Seoul area, and infections were reported in Busan, Gwangju and Ulsan. Lee Jae-myung, governor of Gyeonggi province near Seoul, issued an administrative order to shut down the province’s 15,779 religious facilities, mostly Christian churches, for two weeks to slow the spread of the virus.
Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said authorities will be forced to consider elevating social-distancing measures if transmissions continue to rise. That may include bans on large gatherings, shutting “high-risk” facilities such as karaoke bars and again banning spectators from sports stadiums.
■ North Korean leader Kim Jong Un lifted a lockdown at a major city near the border with South Korea where thousands had been quarantined for weeks over coronavirus worries. But Kim also at a ruling party meeting insisted the North will keep its borders shut. State media outlets reported that Kim said the virus situation in Kaesong was stable and expressed gratitude to residents for cooperating with the lockdown. The lockdown was based on a suspected virus case, but North Korea later said the person’s test results were inconclusive.
■ China reported eight new cases in the northwestern region of Xinjiang where the country’s latest major outbreak has been largely contained. Another 22 new cases reported Friday by the National Health Commission were Chinese travelers returning home. Hong Kong reported another 69 cases and three deaths over the past 24 hours.
The semiautonomous Chinese city has required masks be worn in all public settings, restricted indoor dining and enacted other social-distancing measures to bring down transmissions.