Is Canada dropping its COVID-19 guard too quickly? Experts weigh in

Federal pre-arrival testing for vaccinated travelers is set to be ended by April 1, while provinces continue to lift public health restrictions including mask mandates.

As COVID-19-related public health restrictions continue to ease across Canada, experts are split on whether officials are letting their guard down too quickly.

The federal government is expected to announce Thursday that it is ending pre-arrival testing requirements for vaccinated travellers entering Canada by April 1, sources tell Global News.

The decision comes as nearly all remaining provincial mask mandates are set to be lifted across the country by Monday, with plans to eliminate all remaining restrictions by the end of April.

While experts say they welcome the end of pre-arrival testing, they are wary about what lifting other public health measures could mean for the pandemic in Canada — and whether governments will bring them back if needed.

“For all we know, this is a temporary ceasefire in the pandemic,” said Kerry Bowman, a bioethicist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto.

“If it is, then we all need a break and we should have that break. But if there is a need for restrictions in the future, they need to make sense for that future moment, not for what worked six months ago.”

Bowman pointed to the decline in COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations nationally, which have indeed fallen from the record-breaking totals seen at the peak of the Omicron variant wave in late December and early January.

But those figures have continued to plateau for the past two weeks after stalling at levels higher than past “ceasefires” between waves.