New York Gives Vaccines To Tourists While Canadians Wait Months To Be Fully Vaccinated

Last Updated 4 years ago

While Canadians are having to wait up to 4 months to be fully vaccinated, the United States is giving them out like candy. First it was Alaska to begin offering free vaccines to all arriving tourists and now New York will give the one dose J & J (Johnson and Johnson) vaccine to all tourists who want one that visit Times Square.

The two countries have a stark contrast in the success of their vaccine rollouts. In the United States, 32.6% of the population is fully vaccinated while in Canada only 3.2% of the population has been fully vaccinated. The Canadian government continues to defend their plan by focusing on how many people have received their first shot. At first, the Canadian public was accepting of Canada's plan to change the schedule from the manufactures recommendations of 3-4 weeks to 4 months but now a new study is showing that the first shot is not as effective in preventing the new Covid-19 variants.

tourist in time square new york during covid

The Center For Disease Control (CDC) has recommended that people do not wait any longer than a maximum of 42 days in between the doses approved in the U.S.

The Canadian government has now stretched that number to 120 days. The numbers show Canada's struggle in its vaccination rollout. Mexico has now doubled Canada in the number of fully vaccinated people at 6.8% and developing countries such as Colombia, Brazil and Cambodia have fully vaccinated more of their population.

Canadians Are Flying To The U.S. For Covid-19 Vaccinations

Canadians that are fed up with the slow vaccine rollout and have the means to do so are flying to the U.S. to get fully vaccinated months before they would have in Canada.

Multiple U.S. states do not require residency or citizenship for the Covid-19 vaccine. With the one shot J&J vaccine, many Canadians are booking their flights south, getting their shot and returning home fully vaccinated.

Jimmy Simmons from Ontario, Canada told CTV news that he was tired of waiting and decided to take back control of his life.

“I want this (pandemic) to end, and in order for this end I need to get vaccinated,” Simmons said. “Just sitting at home in Ontario isn't going to change anything.”

Currently, the Canadian government has strict rules in place which is preventing most Canadians from receiving their Covid-19 vaccines in the U.S.

Canadians returning home by air face 3 Covid-19 tests, a 3 day hotel quarantine that costs upwards of $2000 followed by an 11 day quarantine at home. The rules that in place that are meant to protect Canadians are also preventing most from traveling to the U.S. for a vaccine. The land border between the United States and Canada is also closed to all non-essential traffic.

New York Offers Johnson & Johnson Vaccine To All Tourists

The Big Apple is getting its latest tourist attraction. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday that the city will deploy vaccination sites in Times Square where all tourists can be vaccinated with the single dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

“This is a positive message to tourists: come here, it’s safe, it’s a great place to be and we’re going to take care of you,” Hizzoner said at a press conference. “We’re going to make sure you get vaccinated while you’re here with us.”

Unlike the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, which require two shots to be fully effective, the J & J variety takes just one dose which is a huge draw for vaccine tourism. Travelers from out of country or state will be able to visit the planned sites at the High Line in Manhattan, Brooklyn Bridge Park and other locations as soon as this weekend. The city is just waiting on final approval from the state.

New York is continuing to see a decline in Covid-19 cases over the last few weeks and plans on fully reopening. The Mayor has set July 1 as the target date for the city’s full reopening, saying vaccination is key.

“The summer of New York City,” the Mayor excitedly announced. Around-the-clock subway service is set to resume May 17 with curfews for outdoor dining at bars and restaurants ending that day as well. Curfews for indoor service are scheduled to end May 31.

U.S. States Vaccinating Foreign Travelers

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Mike

Saturday 8th of May 2021

"There are already enough people in Canada that make uninformed points of view like this one under the guise of political attacks." ^^ (looks at comments above: see what I mean?)

The reality is, we just dosed over 400,000 Canadians yesterday - a single day record. Adjusted for population, this is equivalent to the U.S. dosing 3.5 million in a single day.

There are very few countries I would rather be in right now. We are on track to come out of this sooner than anyone in Europe, except the UK. Anyone in Canada that's complaining has not really dug into the numbers to see how well we're really doing relative to the rest of the world.

Trevor Singleton

Friday 7th of May 2021

I really like your blog and the info it has on navigating the complexities of travel during Covid times but posts such as this one are veering pretty far "off path" and into the realm of political polemics. Comparing the US rate of full vaccinations to the Canadian rate is disingenous at best: in the face of limited vaccines supplies in the short run and massive supplies by summer, Canada made the humane choice to at least provide *some* vaccination protection to as many of its people as it could as soon as it could, leaving second doses for later on when the vaccine supply would be plentiful enough to play catch-up. Better to have as many people as possible 'mostly protected' rather than have a tiny group of 'really, really protected' and everyone else just out of luck. The first dose of any vaccine provides substantial protection on its own; the second dose increases and extends that protection, but it really doesn't need to be administered at the 3 or 4 week mark after the first. Other countries, such as the UK, also chose this route, and Canada has the benefit of watching how they're doing to see if there's a need to cut short the extended vaccination interval period.

Karl

@Trevor Singleton, yes, agree. Articles like this are the reasons I don’t read traditional news anymore. Headlines to generate clicks.

Disappointed.

@Trevor Singleton, Nah I’m a Canadian and I agree with their criticism. This country’s government is totally incompetent and the only thing they can do is extend and slap on more lockdowns in a knee jerk reaction instead of thinking about how it’s damaging our economy and people’s mental health.

They’re holding us hostage with this vaccine stuff, and they are hypocritical saying that Canadian citizens shouldn’t even leave the country even if it is to get the “holy grail” vaccine. Just senseless conflicting nonsense to force Canadians to comply with insane hotel quarantines and lockdowns. Meanwhile Americans are still free and travelling even though they are said to have more cases and deaths than us!

Just remember that every western country is on track to opening this summer yet Canadians are imprisoned and restricted harsher than ever! People are getting fed up here, and we cannot wait 100 years for vaccines which many people don’t even want to take.

garrytravel

@Trevor Singleton, "disingenous" The Canadian press make such comparisons to USA every day since always, it's Canada's bread and butter. What you really don't like is that it makes Canada's leaders look bad. There seems to be lots of one dosers in Canada, and the weeks are turning to months. I wonder how that "humanitarian choice" or "gamble counter to the drug company's advice" will play out. Probably ok, because Dr. Bonnie Henry makes decsions base on compassion and experience, not just base on ease a political expediency like our PM. If the land borders are opened next month and Canadians can go South for some surplus and vacation, that would solve a lot of issues.

Canadian

Yes, that's what happens when a clown is running a country (Canada).

@Elisabeth, my comment was specifically about our clown prime minister Justin Trudeau. When the vaccines were developed, his government claimed that Canada purchased and secured the most number of vaccines per capita more than any other country in the world. As of today only 2.68% is fully vaccinated in Canada and in US they fully vaccinated more than 30% of their population and now have a demand problem and the supply is there. Again thanks to our clown prime minister Canada is below developing countries like Mexico and Chile in terms of vaccination.

Elisabeth

@Canadian, it's not only happening in Canada..? It's a WORLDwide pandemic, here in Europe vaccination is also ridiculously slow. Yes, most EU borders are (and always have been) open to tourists but this is exactly why we're still in lockdown: everytime a new covid 'variant' is brought back as a souvenir by travelers. Hopefully everybody - who wants to! - will have a vaccin soon.

Kior

Trudeau had said "Canada is back". Yep, back to the back of the line. This country is in shambles and only getting worse.

EdwardV

To be fair, everyone has been eligible in California from day one. Legal, illegal, resident, visitor, tourist or someone just coming over for the day to get a shot.