What’s the Deal with Reopening Land Borders?

There is a proposed reopening of land borders in January. While it is being met with mixed reviews, today we took the opportunity to ask Doctor Melissa Diaz-Musa for her take on the reopening. Here’s what she had to say.

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, Deputy Regional Health Manager, Central Health Region

“With omicron being detected, I think it is still very early to make a definitive decision on whether or not opening the borders would be something, you know, a good idea. I think that we still need to remain guarded; we still need to ensure that we find out more information about omicron. Are the cases really more mild? Is it really more transmissible and how much more transmissible is it? And we also have to meet and determine what kind of surveillance we’ll be doing at the land borders, if it is opened January first. Obviously it would have to be something more; we may have to go back into mandatory quarantining or mandatory isolation for positive cases. So there are many things that we have yet to discuss with the full technical team at the Ministry of Health and Wellness to

come up with the protocols if the borders will be opened in January.”