MONTREAL —
Tania Azevedo wasn’t sure if she would make it to Aruba after all.
After Ontario’s lockdowns forced her to close her hair salon in Toronto, Azevedo decided to capitalize on the free time by visiting friends in the small island nation. She had filled out the country’s application for foreign visitors, purchased the mandatory insurance and taken a COVID-19 test in the days before her departure.
But when she arrived at the airport, airline staff informed her that she had taken the wrong test — RNA, not PCR — and that she would have to take another test and quarantine on arrival.
“I almost didn’t get on my flight,” Azevedo said, adding that in the end, Aruban authorities approved the test and let her skip the quarantine.
With some hotels and airlines offering special terms to lure in travellers this holiday season, sun seekers like Azevedo are nevertheless running into new logistical challenges brought on by efforts to contain the pandemic.
Entry requirements for Canadians heading to the most popular destinations vary from country to country, and range from mandatory quarantines on arrival to required testing and insurance programs. Beachgoers also have to contend with fewer options for airline routes and measures such as mask requirements and temperature checks in place at every step of the journey.
Travellers must quarantine for 14 days at home when they return to Canada, a federal measure that the travel industry has fiercely contested, arguing that replacing it with a testing program at airports would be as effective at containing the disease and would increase people’s appetites for travel.
Still, with the winter cold settling in across the country, many Canadians have decided that the benefits of taking a beach vacation during a pandemic outweigh the inconveniences.
“It was definitely worth it and I’d do it again,” Azevedo said from quarantine in her Toronto home.
Christina Miller, a Montreal-based real estate agent who owns a vacation home in the Dominican Republic, had to fly into Punta Cana instead of the smaller airport closer to her house, filling out at least two documents about virus symptoms and taking a rapid COVID test along the way.
Speaking from the Caribbean island, she said she felt safe on the plane ride there and planned to exercise the same level of caution about the virus abroad as she did at home, adding that she has had her temperature taken everywhere she has gone inside to sit.
“I can honestly say that it’s much easier to respect social distancing in 28-degree weather than it is in freezing temperatures, that’s for sure,” Miller said.
Melissa Iantosca, a spokeswoman for Air Canada Vacations, said the company’s most popular beach destinations remain Cancun, Cayo Coco, Punta Cana and Varadero, meaning passengers’ tastes haven’t changed drastically since the start of the pandemic. But airlines have reduced their capacity by as much as 85 per cent this winter in anticipation of lower demand.
“Analysis of the data we have confirms that people are interested in travelling, but the continued entry restrictions at destination and the quarantine imposed on returning to Canada are limiting bookings and delaying travellers’ plans,” said Debbie Cabana, a spokeswoman for Air Transat.
In a November survey of regular winter travellers in Canada conducted by Snowbird Advisor, for example, 40 per cent of more than 3,000 respondents said they would not be travelling this winter (the poll cannot be assigned a margin of error because it was not based on a random sample).
The mandatory quarantine for those returning to Canada has made it impossible for many people to travel, splitting up some families that normally vacation together. Amanda Steinberg, a dietitian who lives in Montreal, flew to Florida this week with her daughter, but had to leave behind her husband, who wouldn’t have been able to work remotely while in quarantine, and her son, whose high school isn’t allowing students to travel.
Steinberg said she had to take a shorter vacation this year, factoring in the length of the quarantine when she gets back. She wasn’t sure yet whether she felt comfortable enough to do some of her usual vacation activities in Florida, like spin or yoga classes, she said.
Other holiday travellers have felt COVID-19 culture shock upon arrival in their destinations. Brittany Pekeles, who flew to Florida from Montreal in December, felt nervous when she first arrived, realizing that she would have to adapt to the locals’ attitudes toward mask-wearing and physical distancing, which she said were lax by Canadian standards.
Pekeles said she is comfortable eating at restaurants outside, but won’t be going to any nightclubs, which in Florida are permitted to operate at full capacity even as the state reports 10,000 new virus cases per day, on average.
“It’s definitely not the same vacation as it would be,” Pekeles said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published December 17, 2020.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
VICTORIA – British Columbia‘s Environment Assessment Office has fined Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. $590,000 for “deficiencies” in the construction of its pipeline crossing the province.
The office says in a statement that 10 administrative penalties have been levied against the company for non-compliance with requirements of its environmental assessment certificate.
It says the fines come after problems with erosion and sediment control measures were identified by enforcement officers along the pipeline route across northern B.C. in April and May 2023.
The office says that the latest financial penalties reflect its escalation of enforcement due to repeated non-compliance of its requirements.
Four previous penalties have been issued for failing to control erosion and sediment valued at almost $800,000, while a fifth fine of $6,000 was handed out for providing false or misleading information.
The office says it prioritized its inspections along the 670-kilometre route by air and ground as a result of the continued concerns, leading to 59 warnings and 13 stop-work orders along the pipeline that has now been completed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
