Canada opens borders to fully vaccinated foreign travellers

Following the decision, medical experts feel that the risk of infection cannot be eliminated.

"Certainly the optics aren't ideal, as we are in a fourth wave and cases continue to climb across the country," said Dr Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist and member of Ontario's COVID-19 vaccine task force, CBC News reported. 

Being in the midst of the fourth wave of COVID-19 fuelled by the delta variant, most of the country's cases and hospitalisations are among the unvaccinated.

The measures taken by the Canadian Government earlier included travellers being fully vaccinated with a Canadian-approved vaccine at least 14 days prior to the arrival in Canada along with proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of their scheduled flight.

Dr Bogoch considered these measures to be very good at ensuring people coming don't have COVID-19.

"It's not foolproof, it's not a hermetically sealed border, we'll still have cases of COVID introduced. It's just going to be fewer than if we had no protection whatsoever," he was quoted as saying by CBC News reports.

Dr. Donald Vinh, an infectious diseases expert at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, expressed concern over the federal government's open border policy for foreign travellers during high transmission of delta variants across the country.

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)