United States to maintain non-essential travel restrictions in place at U.S.-Canada border

News comes as Ontario reports fewer than 200 new cases of COVID again

The United States is expected to maintain restrictions at its land borders with Canada and Mexico, despite moves from Ottawa to begin allowing vaccinated tourists into Canada once again.

A memo from the Department of Homeland Security indicates it will maintain restrictions on non-essential travel until at least August 21. This comes amid rising COVID case counts in the United States attributed to the faster-spreading Delta variant and an uptick in vaccine hesitancy among Americans.

Canada announced this week it would begin permitting fully-vaccinated American tourists to cross land borders into the country as of August 9.

FULLY VACCINATED AMERICAN TOURISTS WELCOME IN CANADA AS OF AUG. 9, OTHER NATIONALS ON SEPT. 7

This news comes as Canada continues to outpace America in vaccination rates. In Ontario alone, there were 140,491 vaccines administered yesterday. Public Health Ontario also reported 135 new cases of COVID-19 across the province, as well as 151 additional recoveries, and four more lives lost.

Locally, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit reported three new cases of COVID-19 since Tuesday’s update and six more recoveries. To date, 67.8 per cent of Simcoe-Muskoka residents aged 12 and up have received a first dose of a COVID vaccine, while 48.8 per cent are fully vaxxed.

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