Canadians’ support for keeping the border closed to Americans remains strong, despite a decline in new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and a decimated tourism industry, CBC’s Sophia Harris reports. A new poll by Research Co. found that out of 1,000 Canadians surveyed online at the end of August, a whopping 90 per cent agreed with the current Canada-U.S. border closure to non-essential traffic.

The survey comes at a time when several Canadian border cities are suffering economic losses because of the absence of U.S. tourists. Nevertheless, they’re maintaining their support for the border closure to help stop the spread of COVID-19 from the country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths.

Global health specialist Steven Hoffman suggested that even with a decline in case numbers, many Canadians will continue to support the border closure because of concerns that politics is influencing the U.S. response to the virus. „It really starts to raise questions among people as to whether the response is being designed in a way to maximize its effectiveness, or is it being designed in a way to maximize or to influence the outcome of a forthcoming election,” said Hoffman, a professor of global health, law and political science at Toronto’s York University.