Canada and the United States yesterday extended a ban on non-essential travel between their two countries to October 21 in order to limit the spread of the new coronavirus, Ottawa announced.

The world's longest border has been closed to nearly everything but goods trade since March 21, with the travel ban, extended several times since then.

“We are extending non-essential travel restrictions with the United States until October 21st, 2020,” Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said.

“We will continue to base our decisions on the best public health advice available to keep Canadians safe.”

Both Canada and the United States have seen an uptick in new Covid-19 cases in recent weeks.

Canada recorded almost 700 new cases yesterday while the US reported 44,000. Nearly 200,000 people in the US and more than 9,200 in Canada have died of Covid-19 illnesses.

Travel between Canada and the United States, which usually sees 400,000 border crossings per day, has fallen off by 95 percent since the pandemic restrictions were put in place.