From Canada? Want to go to the U.S.A.? Better have the right vaccine - Boing Boing

The last couple of years have been hard on Canadian Snowbirds. Many of us, myself included, are used to heading south in the fall, to escape the icy bullshit of a Canadian winter. Unfortunately, thanks to COVID-19, a lot of us have been trapped, north of the wall, since March 2020. 

I've been fine with this. 

When the land border was closed down to everyone but essential travellers, my mindset was that if I was going to get sick, I'd just as soon do it in my own nation where healthcare is free (yeah, we pay our taxes, but still.) Then, last winter, the vaccines started to roll out. By early spring, both my wife and I had been injected with two doses of Pfizer's version of the brew. We breathed a sigh of relief and began to hope that we might, one day soon, be able to start our travels again. I'm sure that lots of other folks did too. Unfortunately, depending on where in Canada they live, it wasn't a sure bet that they'd wind up with two doses of the same vaccine. In the rush to get as many Canadians vaccinated against the plague as possible, many provinces started mixing and matching whichever vaccines that they had on hand.

So, you could wind up with Pfizer for your first jab and Moderna for your second. It's cool, they told us. Mixing vaccines affords tons of protection, we were assured. Why, we'd all be able to get back to our lives in no time… provided said life doesn't include travelling to one of many countries where vaccine mixing is considered to be a dangerous load of bullshit. You may have guessed by now, that America is one of those countries.  

From The CBC:

…at the same time the U.S. reopens the land border, it will start requiring that foreign land and air travellers entering the country be fully vaccinated.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) currently doesn't recognize mixed COVID-19 vaccines — such as one dose of AstraZeneca, and one dose of Pfizer or Moderna — and hasn't yet said if travellers with two different doses will be blocked from entry when the vaccine requirement kicks in.

So that sucks. 

According to the CBC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might soon consider changing their stance on mixed vaccines. I'd like to think that a crap load of data on the effectiveness of mixed vaccine dosing will play into such a decision. No matter how badly folks might want to head south for the winter, Americans deserve to be as safe as they can be. 

In the meantime, I suspect that, just like last fall, many snowbirds will wind up on Vancouver Island, where I hang my hat, these days. It's warm enough here that living in an RV is both possible and comfortable.

But I'll tell ya, it's a far cry from kicking back in the trade winds on the cusp of Texas' southern border.

Image via Wikipedia Commons

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2021-10-16 12:18:00Z
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