BRENT PIN­HEIRO
brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

As part of Cana­da’s move to­wards "a more sus­tain­able ap­proach" to man­ag­ing COVID-19 on a long-term ba­sis, ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed trav­ellers will soon have the op­tion to use rapid anti­gen tests to meet pre-en­try re­quire­ments.

Come Feb­ru­ary 28th, a rapid anti­gen test tak­en the day be­fore the flight or ar­rival at a land/ma­rine bor­der will be ac­cept­ed for en­try in­to Cana­da. The Pub­lic Health Agency of Cana­da says anti­gen tests “must be au­tho­rised by the coun­try in which it was pur­chased and ad­min­is­tered by a lab­o­ra­to­ry, health­care en­ti­ty, or tele­health ser­vice.” Rapid home test­ing kits are not ac­cept­ed.

A mol­e­c­u­lar test, such as a PCR test, al­so can be tak­en 72 hours be­fore the flight or ar­rival at a land/ma­rine bor­der. Un­der the old pol­i­cy, all trav­ellers five years and old­er were re­quired to show proof of a neg­a­tive COVID-19 mol­e­c­u­lar test tak­en 72 hours be­fore their flight or ar­rival by car.

The gov­ern­ment al­so an­nounced its in­ten­tion to ease on-ar­rival test­ing for ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed trav­ellers. Ar­riv­ing pas­sen­gers will now be ran­dom­ly se­lect­ed for test­ing. How­ev­er, they will no longer be re­quired to quar­an­tine while await­ing test re­sults. And while chil­dren un­der 12 years—trav­el­ling with ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed adults—re­main ex­empt from quar­an­tine, un­vac­ci­nat­ed for­eign na­tion­als are still barred from en­try un­less they qual­i­fy for an ex­emp­tion.

All trav­ellers al­so must sub­mit proof of vac­ci­na­tion in Eng­lish or French and a quar­an­tine plan on the Ar­rive­CAN mo­bile app or web­site.

Caribbean Air­lines, Air Cana­da, and West­Jet op­er­ate di­rect flights be­tween T&T and Cana­da.