Oh, OK. That makes perfect sense and I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me. Those are the rules here too except returning travellers have to have to isolate in their own premises and the monitoring is remote (phone calls for the health authorities). One must present acceptable proof of a quarantine plan to federal authorities at the airport before being allowed to clear customs. I’m not sure exactly what happens to people who don’t “pass” and oddly there is no requirement for testing upon arrival.
May I ask if your government has defined the “ultimate goal”? Ours has not and over time the idea of flattening the curve and preserving hospital space has gone by the wayside as we have never even begun to approach hospital capacity, even in the hardest-hit areas. Now we all wonder exactly what we are working towards. Zero cases? That does not seem like a realistic objective.
I haven’t heard statistics on that but not long ago the news reported that in British Columbia (the most westerly Canadian province) opioid overdose deaths were 90% higher in the first quarter of 2020 than in 2019. And we won’t even begin to see the extent of the human tragedy wrought by the estimated 4 million jobs lost since April until the government relief programs expire. They are not sustainable indefinitely.
. So far no cases have been linked to those who have come from abroad. Community spread is still a thing from two know cases from Europe in March. They are preparing to open up internal plane travel. Still waiting to hear what protocols that will have.
Just a random data point. If you can fly into Honduras right now because you are a citizen or resident, or can prove you own a home or business here, you have to self quarantine for 21 days and sign a legal form at the airport. That forms states that if you are sarscov2 carrier, you are responsible for all medical expenses of those who are infected through you in your household or if you should not follow the self quarantine protocol any and all community spread
I'm going to guess those extreme-sounding measures are in place because Honduras has very little for a medical system? If you don't mind telling me, how do you handle the heath needs of yourself and your family?
That is true overall. We are connected to a medical clinic here, hubby was on the board for 2 years. For day to day stuff no issues. Its the big stuff that is hard. We have only had 2 issues in the 9 years here that required hospital care. Both were good experiences for us, but were in private clinics on the mainland. Here on the island there is no private hospital care. We would have to leave the island. If you know who and where to go and can get there and can pay all it good. If one of those things is not true, it can be really hard. Of the two surgeries we have had for family here, one was $500 and one was $2000, so costs are very reasonable to expats, but locals often can not afford such care.
Great article.
The more I thought about it, the more it struck me as ironic that such insight came from a guy who loop-holed himself into Canada from one of the hardest hit areas on the planet because he insisted on having a vacation.
lol - so true. Judging fellow Americans for not handling things like Canada . . . while he himself does exactly what he was judging other for...The more I thought about it, the more it struck me as ironic that such insight came from a guy who loop-holed himself into Canada from one of the hardest hit areas on the planet because he insisted on having a vacation.
In fairness, this guy apparently did not have Covid and therefore did not import it. But inevitably travel is the primary cause of transmission from place to place and the reason why even our friends in “controllable” places like Australia and New Zealand will not be case-free as long as there are exceptions to border closures.
This is what I struggle to understand in real time, no one is saying this virus is just going to cease to exsist. I mean the 1918 flu is the H1N1 that is still around 100 year later, and pneumonia and the common cold are in the coronavirus family. I live on an island and they did shut down and we had no cases until some people snuck in and at least one ended up a positive asymptomatic that is known as patient 0 here. But we have no reason to believe that even with vaccines or medicine, the virus ceases to be. Do we really shut down for years? Do countries, and regions and cities lock each other out everytime there are known cases? I mean what kind of world do we want, one where governments make all the calls on what risks are allowable? I am an American but live in Honduras. The Government here is given all the authority it wants in making decisions, but carries little of the fault of those now struggling. In Canada it seems the government carries the weight of the medical and fall out in caring for those who were out of work during closures, but Honduras is mimicking countries with VERY different environments and will have very different outcomes. No medical system, no money, no resources to distribute. The fact that the US has a ton of cases limits help and just plain people. tourists and volunteer groups from the ability to come. We are all connected in 2020 is ways that can not all be untangled. Sorry for the vent, I have no purpose in my rambling, just thing to sensemake how to be in the world as a person of not just one country and culture and too much time and access to information.
Well, I guess the issue is that they didn't defer their vacation travel, under the circumstances. Remember, our boarders are NOT open to non-essential travel. There are a number of exemptions; each for a specific purpose. In addition to cross-border employment/education and personal emergency, the intent of the "rule" they exploited is to repatriate Canadians abroad and to allow for non-citizen family members to enter Canada to reunify families. Neither of those situations even remotely apply to them coming up for a couple of weeks at the lake.
I actually completely agree with you in that Zero cases shouldn't be the goal but there's no authority anywhere that has defined what the end-game is. And here we are, with cases (relatively) low, and absolutely no risk whatsoever of health resources being exhausted, and our restrictions are actually increasing. I don't know what to think, really, either.
