Trudeau not yet considering travel restrictions for Canada amidst coronavirus

Trudeau said on Thursday that “knee-jerk reactions” like closing Canadian borders to foreign nationals coming from infected areas weren’t currently in consideration.

“We’re going to stay focused on doing the things that actually matter: on empowering Canadians to make the right decisions for their own health, for their families’ health, listening to experts, working to co-ordinate with health authorities across the country, including in all provinces and territories and ensuring that our response is active and up to date every step of the way.”

Elsewhere in the world, Australia has banned travelers from South Korea who aren’t Australian citizens/permanent residents, as well as travelers from China and Iran, as the country deals with the 55 cases within their borders. Turkey has border restrictions in place as well.

Trudeau, though, has decided not to follow Australia’s lead on the matter.

“We know that keeping Canadians safe needs to be done in the right way and we’re going to keep doing the things that actually keep Canadians safe,” he said. “There is a lot of misinformation out there, there is a lot of knee-jerk reaction that isn’t keeping people safe, that is having real challenging impacts on communities and on community safety.”

So far, Canada has put out a travel warning to Iran due to the virus, as all non-essential travel is strongly advised against.