Pedestrian |
Mar 31, 2021 11:33 PM |
Quote:
Snowbirds Fly South for the Vaccine
By Craig Offman
March 30, 2021 6:31 pm ET
Toronto
We Canadians are a compliant flock. We have faith in our government. We share a strong egalitarian streak. If there is a line, we’ll stand in it peacefully. But the Liberal government’s bungled rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations is ruffling feathers here, and many people in my parents’ cohort have ditched the wait and flown south in search of their own vaccinations. This may be hard for Americans to understand, but in Canada this qualifies as subversive.
You can hardly blame these seniors. If the government can’t protect them, who will? These people have been cooped up for more than a year, unable to hug their grandchildren or stroll without fearing the quiet menace of aerosol particles. Many complain that the vaccine registration systems, controlled by provinces, are impenetrable or Soviet: You have to know someone or hope for a lucky glitch that lets you slide into the queue. The statistics also offer little hope. So far, 1.8% of Canadians have been fully vaccinated, a rate that puts us slightly behind Brazil.
Further, when the first round of jabs began around February, disheartening news followed. In early March, Canada became the only country in the world to delay the second dose by four months. We love our quirks, but uniquely inept life-and-death policy decisions strain one’s patience. When addressing how that extension would affect the province of British Columbia, Canada’s chief science adviser, Mona Nemer, framed it as a “population-level experiment.” How comforting.
Facing questions about what guidelines Canadians with one shot should follow, Ottawa mangled the message even more: “I would expect the advice to evolve as we go along,” said Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam. “But it’s a bit early.”
The other day, my mother and I were on the phone counting 40 people we know who had migrated south over the past two months in search of shots. Some of them already owned condos down there, and while they initially didn’t go, for fear of mingling in a state where rules around masks seemed relatively lax, staying put in Canada came to seem more dangerous. Shots in Florida formally require proof of residence or regular rental. If that can be established, being vaccinated is as easy as rolling up and ordering a double-double coffee at Tim Hortons.
David Peltz, a Toronto real-estate investor, was already at his second home in South Florida earlier this winter when he heard how easy it was to get the shots and got them. People back home greeted his update with a combination of happiness for him and anger at the government for a botched job. “It was just awkward,” he says. “They just want the same opportunity.”
There is, alas, a price to pay on the way home. Flying back to Canada means three nights in a quarantine hotel, even for people who are vaccinated. That rule is now being challenged in an Ontario court as “overbroad, arbitrary and grossly disproportionate.”
Speaking of arbitrary, the rule doesn’t apply to Canadians returning by car. So rather than flying into Toronto Pearson Airport and paying thousands to stay at one of the designated hotels, Torontonians can land in Buffalo, hire a driver for a few hundred dollars, and cross the border. Why not? If your feet are on the ground, the border is merely a state of mind.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/snowbir...ion_major_pos6
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