U.S. Sends Vaccines To Canada To Help End Border Restrictions

Canada has been working hard to reverse the effects of Coronavirus but is lagging in the vaccination of citizens due in part to a lack of vaccines.

The United States is helping Canada with its vaccine roll-out. It sent a million shots of the vaccine across the border Thursday night.

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Canadian officials have suggested more of their residents need to be vaccinated before border restrictions are relaxed according to News 4 who recently spoke with Kevin Munoz, the assistant press secretary for the Biden White House.

He says President Biden is taking several steps to work with Canada to re-open the border.

“Certainly, we are working very hard with the government of Canada through a series of expert working groups with our health officials, our diplomatic officials, our security officials, and their counterparts to ensure we are doing a process to reopen our borders safely and quickly and it’s going to be guided by the objective science and the state of the pandemic.”

Locally Congressman Brian Higgins has been a major supporter of reopening the U.S. - Canadian Border.

Border reopening would be a major step in revitalizing the economy and business on both sides of the border.

Higgins says in a statement “Continued action by the united states to share vaccines with our Canadian friends will serve to expedite a return to normalcy and save lives.”

The border closure disrupted what has been routine... Buffalo residents won't be making any day trips to Niagara-on-the-Lake this summer, and Hamilton residents won't be crossing the border for Buffalo Bills games.

"We're not expecting tourism to come back to 2018 or 2019 levels until probably 2022 or 2023," said Patrick Kaler, president and CEO of Visit Buffalo Niagara. "So we know we're in this for the long haul."

Between the border shutdown and restrictions, the pandemic has placed on business operations, some retailers, restaurants, and hotels aren't expected to survive the long haul. Some already have closed, and many more will on both sides of the border according to local residents and business people.

See Striking Photos of the Tourism Industry During COVID-19

LOOK: Answers to 30 common COVID-19 vaccine questions

While much is still unknown about the coronavirus and the future, what is known is that the currently available vaccines have gone through all three trial phases and are safe and effective. It will be necessary for as many Americans as possible to be vaccinated in order to finally return to some level of pre-pandemic normalcy, and hopefully these 30 answers provided here will help readers get vaccinated as soon they are able.