Canada is starting to ease some travel restrictions, including from the US

Canada’s government began lifting travel restrictions from countries like the U.S. on Monday – the first tentative step towards a return to normal along the world’s longest land border between two countries.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced this at a press conference in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario announced that fully vaccinated Canadian citizens and permanent residents no longer need to be quarantined for 14 days after their return. Even fully vaccinated air travelers no longer have to spend their first three days in Canada in a state-approved hotel.

The US-Canada border has been closed to non-essential travel, including tourism, since March 2020 and will remain so until at least July 21. Last month, Canada’s Public Security Minister Bill Blair suggested that a full reopening would not happen until 75 percent of his country’s population are fully vaccinated.

However, Trudeau said Monday he was “very hopeful that new steps to reopen it will be announced in the coming weeks.

“We will make sure we don’t see a resurgence of COVID-19 cases because no one wants to go back to further restrictions after doing so much and sacrificing so much to get to this point,” he added.

Currently, only 36 percent of Canadians (approximately 13.7 million people) are considered fully vaccinated, according to CTV News. In contrast, 47.4 percent of Americans (157.3 million people) are considered fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Almost from the moment the US-Canada border closed, American lawmakers representing states along the border have urged the Trump and Biden administrations to work with Trudeau’s administration to come up with a plan to ease restrictions who have separated families and both countries’ tourism industries cost billions of dollars.

With postal wires