By Rod Nickel
WINNIPEG, Manitoba - Canada will not allow anyone who displays symptoms of COVID-19 to board domestic flights or inter-city passenger trains, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Saturday.
Trudeau's government has long urged Canadians feeling ill to stay at home, but he told reporters at his daily press conference that Transport Canada had now formalised travel rules as cases steadily rise.
The restrictions will take effect on Monday at noon.
Asked how screening would be different, Trudeau said the government was giving new tools to airlines and railways, but he did not elaborate.
Even enhanced screening offers "no guarantee" that sick people will not board, as they can hide symptoms, said Howard Njoo, Canada's deputy chief public health officer, in a separate press conference.
Canada has 5,153 cases of coronavirus, and 55 deaths, health officials said. While case numbers are climbing, the rate of growth in British Columbia, the Pacific Coast province where community transmission was first reported, seems to be slowing, said Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam.
"There are signs of hope," she told reporters in Ottawa.
The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa tweeted that the Bank of China had on Friday donated medical supplies to Canada, including thousands of masks, goggles and gloves.
Trudeau has faced criticism at home for sending a shipment of protective equipment to China in February, before COVID-19 cases spiked in Canada.
(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)