Thought of the Day - December 31 - Getting Stranded

I chuckled when the Cruise Line International Association cited "restrictions that change on a country-by-county basis" as one of the reasons for their industry's woes ( Thought of the Day - October 13 - Breakers Yard Boom ), but the more I think about it, in many ways they are right.

For example, recently Gail has been following the plight of a Canadian author that she reads. Louise Penny got caught up in the panic that followed the recent press concerning the more-contagious V501Y strain that has been rattling around in the UK since September ( Thought of the Day - December 23 - Viral Mutation ) and has since been confirmed here in Canada.

As she said on her Facebook page on December 21st:

"Oh dear. Canada, quite sensibly, has joined other countries in banning flights from UK. I was supposed to head home Wednesday. There are worse things, though, than being stuck in London! Just being, in words of Elmer Fudd, vewy, vewy careful....and, as Ross Geller would say - am pivoting."

Since then she has been trying to get back to Canada. With direct flights cancelled, and armed with a fresh COVID test, her first attempt was to fly via the US; it seems the US has not implemented similar restrictions to Canada. She arranged to fly on Sunday 27th, but was refused entry by United Airlines at Heathrow as she was not a US citizen - she was lucky this did not happen when she arrived in Newark.

She next booked a flight to Montreal via Doha, Qatar. And took another COVID test (luckily she has a local doctor on retainer). She flew out on a night flight on Tuesday and made it back to Canada after 25 hours of travel. After checks by Health Canada at the airport, she was sent on her way with government blessing and stern warnings to quarantine. So she finally made it home to the Eastern Townships in Quebec late yesterday.

FYI - She did note that Health Canada is putting people up, who cannot safely quarantine, in airport hotel - at government expense. And, she also used the new ArriveCan app (launched at the end of November) for her daily check-in while in quarantine.

A couple of lessons learned here:

1. If you are travelling, anywhere, for any reason, don't be surprised if you get stranded, at least temporarily. COVID policy is still a very fluid thing;

2. As the enforcement of these policies is lax, and people are very creative, they will get around any policies put in place - thus the spread continues, especially across the Western World. So remember, it is your actions, not just policy, that will dictate your future.

Cheers

Cliff