Starting at midnight on Monday, Canada is suspending all commercial, private and charter flights transporting passengers from the United Kingdom for 72 hours, in an effort to prevent a new, potentially more contagious strain of the coronavirus from spreading to this country.
The restriction doesn't apply to cargo flights, or an aircraft landing for safety reasons nor any flights that land for technical stops where no passengers disembark.
According to a press release, the Public Health Agency of Canada is closely monitoring the genetic variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 identified in the United Kingdom and is working with international partners, including the WHO, to better understand this variant and its impacts.
Passengers who arrived in Canada from the U.K. on Sunday will be subject to “secondary screening and enhanced measures, including increased scrutiny of quarantine plans,” the release said.
So far, no cases of the new strain have been identified in Canada.
