Border Control

By Hubie and Bertie

Our first crossing of the Canadian border after it opened to fully vaccinated Americans could not have been less eventful. (Although one of our humans got randomly selected for a rapid COVID test on a return trip.) Because we'd uploaded all our information to the ArriveCAN website ahead of time, the only thing the customs officer wanted to see was proof of a negative PCR taken within 72 hours of arrival. She didn't even ask about our rabies vaccinations! (We're good through 2023.)

The US, however, hasn't opened its land border to Canadians yet. In fact, the closure recently got extended through September 21. People on both sides are having their expected hissy fits.

It's probably foolhardy to try to hang some logic on this, especially since both countries have handled the closure inconsistently. For example, from March 2020 to this month, Canadians were always able to fly to the US. Weird! But now that we've been to Canada and were able to have a look around, it's beginning to dawn on us why it's not yet a reciprocal free-for-all.

1) Canada has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world: 73 percent have received at least one dose, and 66 percent are fully vaccinated. They can be confident that they can welcome international travelers (and their money) without becoming deathly sick.

2) The people we saw in Montreal were far more compliant with masking and social distancing than in the US. It was a given that the moment you walked into an indoor public space, your mask went on. Hand sanitizer was everywhere. Restaurant tables were widely spaced. None of these restrictions affected anyone's ability to have a good time, by the way.

3) Americans continue to behave badly. Maybe not so much in states like New York and Vermont (which leads the US in vaccinations). But the US-Canadian border extends far west of us, from Michigan to the Dakotas and beyond, and things are dicier in those states. Example: South Dakota has just seen the country’s largest two-week COVID surge — an increase in cases of more than 230 percent since the 2021 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was held. 

With numbers like those, our hospitals overwhelmed and schools going into lockdown, you have to wonder: Who wants to come here? Beyond the thousands of Afghans we're airlifting out of Kabul, we can't imagine why anyone would. We cats HISS.

UPDATE: "The city of Montreal will not renew the state of emergency that has been in place since the start of the pandemic, citing a high vaccination rate, the imminent vaccination passport and public health guidelines," The Montreal Gazette reports. See, folks, this is how you do it. We cats PURR.