[News] Seychelles opens borders to all visitors, no COVID-19 vaccine or quarantine necessary

[Angel of Death]

TORONTO -- While Canadians remain under a travel advisory, one Indian Ocean island nation is reopening to tourists, no vaccine required.  As of March 12, the Seychelles had provided the first vaccine dose to 63.5 per cent of the total po[CENSORED]tion, while only 27 per cent had also received their second dose, according to an update on the Seychelles government website.  The island will be taking a wait-and-see approach to the COVID-19 situation. “What they say is they're just going to monitor the situation,” travel expert Loren Christie told CTV’s Your Morning on Thursday. “This is very unusual and there's not a lot of other countries to measure up against it.”  People will be keeping a close eye as border restrictions lift in Seychelles, Christie says, particularly because their herd immunity threshold is lower than other countries’.  “It's a little bit more of a higher percentage of the po[CENSORED]tion to be vaccinated, around 85 per cent versus the 63.5 of the Seychelles, so people will be watching to see how it goes for sure,” he said.  While there’s no quarantine, there are still restrictions: travellers to the Seychelles still require a negative PCR test within 72 hours before arriving in the country, Health Travel Authorization is required, and they must have travel insurance that covers COVID-19 related care.  In Canada, border restrictions remain in place and the federal government still advises against all non-essential travel.Travellers returning to Canada by plane must have a negative PCR test 72 hours before departure. Once arriving in Canada, travellers begin their 14-day quarantine by spending three nights in a government approved hotel while awaiting new PCR test results. Once results have been received, Canadians can finish their quarantine at home, where they will administer a self-test on day 10 and await those results.  A recent poll suggests that Canadians aren’t too eager to reopen the border and allow travellers from the U.S. to enter. The poll, conducted by the Association of Canadian Studies, showed that 70 per cent of Canadians were either very worried or somewhat worried about allowing American vacationers into the country. Only 31 per cent of Americans felt similarly about lifting border restrictions.  Safety should be the number one priority when reopening, said Christie.  “We have to make sure that residents feel safe, comfortable, inviting people in,” said Christie.  Part of making residents and tourists feel safe is making sure they understand the guidelines and are confident they’re good.  “The lesson that you could learn with any of the countries around the world that have done varying stages of opening up to tourists, is make sure that the rules are very clearly understood and easily enforceable,” he said.  He said that Dubai ran into trouble over the winter after allowing European travellers in, which resulted in another lockdown.  “Even more recently, think about Miami Beach just last week during spring break, you know, people were not obeying the rules there to the point where they had to call in law enforcement and you had the mayor on TV saying to people, please don't come,” he added.  The Canadian government needs to commit to a reopening plan so that Canadians can feel safe welcoming tourists across the border again, Christie said.  “It's imperative that we get the health and safety right and whether that's proof of vaccination, or negative COVID testing or an efficient contract chasing method, all of that is important,” he said.  “But I think what we really need, what we're missing right now, we don't have the governments committed to what is the criteria to reopen the border.”  With that information, Canadians can prepare for tourism and tick the boxes needed to get it going again, he said.  “They need to release what that is to everybody so we can all feel confident,” he said. “Travellers can plan to travel and businesses in the tourism industry have a roadmap on which to reopen and get ready to welcome tourists.”