Canada loosens COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions

Canada has begun to lift some of its travel restrictions with the United States that were put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that the country plans to reopen the Canadian-U.S. border completely within the coming weeks. He did not give an exact date for when that would happen.

"We’re very hopeful that we’re going to see new steps on reopening announced in the coming weeks," Trudeau said, according to The Hill. "We’re going to make sure that we’re not seeing a resurgence of COVID-19 cases because nobody wants to go back to further restrictions, after having done so much and sacrificed so much to get to this point."

So far, Canada has lifted some of its travel restrictions, such as allowing fully vaccinated Canadians to skip the 14-day quarantine period needed to travel out of the country.

"Nobody wants us to move too fast and have to reimpose restrictions as case numbers rise like we’re seeing elsewhere in the world,″ Trudeau said. "We need to do this right."