Travel health and covid testing in Toronto
Canadian Travel Clinics are pleased to announce the launch of two new travel clinics in Toronto Downtown and North York. Both clinics will be offering pre-travel health consultations and Covid-19 PCR and Antigen rapid-results testing with fit-to-fly travel certificates. Canadian Travel Clinics has opened travel clinics in most of the major cities in Canada including Calgary and Vancouver and is committed to providing convenient and reliable testing for travellers. Our Toronto covid-19 testing clinics are conveniently located with transport links and parking.
Latest travel advice
The Government of Canada has changed its travel advice from ‘avoid all non-essential travel’ to ‘exercise normal precautions’ for many popular destinations such as Cuba,New Zealand and Germany.
Other popular destinations, such as Dominican Republic and Mexico, are now flagged with ‘exercise a high degree of caution’.
But what does this mean in practical terms for the average traveller?
Seek reliable advice about your destination
Your first step should be to check the Government of Canada’s travel advisories to learn more about what to expect in your destination. For example, some destinations may require you to report your location and health status, or you may need to quarantine on arrival.
The travel agent you booked with, or your airline may also have information for you about pre-travel covid testing requirements. And you can check the advice provided by your destination’s government, too.
Sign up for The Government of Canada’s ArriveCAN service before you travel
All travellers need to use The Government of Canada’s ArriveCAN service. You can set this up online for free. You may come across organizations offering to do this for you, for a fee – but the process is very simple and quick, so we’d recommend doing it yourself. Just download the ArriveCAN app to your device, or use the web version of ArriveCAN.
Unvaccinated travellers probably still need to get tested for covid before flying
For many destinations, unvaccinated travellers, including children, will need to take a medically supervised covid-19 test within a certain window before scheduled departure, often 72 hours. We provide a covid-19 testing service tailored to travellers at many of our travel health clinics in major Canadian cities. Once our trained staff have taken your swab, we will get your sample tested. If your result is negative, we can issue you with a covid travel certificate, which we will email to you.
Some destinations will accept the result of a video-supervised lateral flow test, which is a convenient option that we offer.
You should still get vaccinated to protect yourself from common traveller’s diseases
It’s important for travellers to remember that other diseases are still available! The risk of falling ill from malaria, hepatitis, meningitis, Japanese encephalitis and so on remains the same; and officers at some borders will want to see proof that you are vaccinated against yellow fever or polio. So, we’d really like you to make a travel health appointment at our Toronto clinic six to eight weeks before you travel. At your appointment our travel health specialists will recommend an appropriate regime of vaccines and give you some travel health advice.
Continue to practice mosquito and insect bite avoidance
As well as getting the appropriate jabs for your destination, you should continue to practice healthy travel habits like mosquito and insect bite avoidance, and sun safety. The old advice about safe sex and alcohol safety still stands, too, and you still need to take steps to protect yourself from food-borne and water-borne illnesses.
Browse our articles about different aspects of travel health, or you can always ask questions at your travel health consultation.
Vaccinated travellers no longer need a negative covid test to return to Canada
If your covid jabs are up to date, you don’t need to take a test before returning to Canada. But you may have to take a test if you are not vaccinated. Rather than trying to find a covid-test service in your destination, why not pack one of our video-supervised lateral flow test kits. We can set up a video conferencing appointment toward the end of your trip to do the test ready for your flight back to Canada.
For the most up-to-date advice for travellers entering Canada, we would always recommend checking The Government of Canada’s page on covid-19: travel, testing and borders.
And with that bit of health admin out of the way, we’re very pleased and excited to wish you happy, healthy travels!