Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article references the U.S. land border reopening. As of yet, the U.S. has not detailed if it will extend the Oct. 21 closure.
POINT ROBERTS (NEWS 1130) — Those in Point Roberts are welcoming new details being shared by the U.S. government on vaccinations, but many questions remain.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an email to The Canadian Press Monday that those with shots approved by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration can travel to the U.S.
The FDA has approved three COVID-19 vaccines, and the AstraZeneca shot is not among them. The WHO, however, has approved it.
Related Article: U.S. to accept travellers immunized with vaccines approved by WHO, FDA, says CDC
In Canada, over 220,000 people have been fully immunized with AstraZeneca or 0.58 per cent.
It’s not yet clear if people with mixed vaccines will make the cut.
However, there is no official word if the U.S. land border will be open come November. The border is closed until at least Oct. 21, despite pleas from many for it to reopen.
Point Roberts residents have been among those hardest hit by the closure, as the town sits right on the border, and has been shuttered off because of the border closure since the pandemic began.
Those with both American and Canadian citizenship have been able to travel back and forth, but had to quarantine until recently.
Brian Calder is with the Point Roberts Chamber of Commerce and is encouraged by the recent news.
Calder had hoped America would follow suit when Canada opened its border in the summer, especially since the community’s economy has suffered without visiting Canadians.
“Half of us, including me, are Canadian citizens as well — we’re dual — in Point Roberts [like] half our population. And so our ties to Canada are stronger than — for most of us — than they are to the USA because 90 per cent of our economy is Canadian. Our water, or power, comes from British Columbia, the Greater Vancouver area.
“So with 90 per cent of our economy driven by Canadians, we miss them dearly. And so does their properties, the properties are overgrown, they’ve had to get special people that come in and fix leaks.”
Calder added he never understood the logic of being able to fly into the U.S. but not being able to drive.
“They’ve been denied access unless they took a plane. So the goofiness of it to me is our friends can not come through the border in their car, isolated, masked up, vaccinated — all the protocols. But they can … get on a plane, fly down to Bellingham or Seattle, clear the customs there and fly on this little plane into Point Roberts grass strip here … and it’s also 400 bucks each way for each person, why they shouldn’t be able to spend $5 on gas in Richmond and come through the border on the same basis.”
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He hopes Canadians will return to the town as soon as they’re able to but says, “I don’t envy the border trying to figure out what Health Canada or Health USA is going to mandate this time because it’s been chaotic.”
Calder has been clamouring for months for Point Roberts to be a test community for Canadians crossing over. He’s skeptical that this is going to go smoothly.
“Use us as a guinea pig to phase-in because they’re going to have to learn stuff as they’re phasing in! But no, blinders on. When you say skeptical, I call it experience, and my first-hand experience is to make me skeptical.”