Some Canadians abroad plan to change their route home and cross the border by land, instead of air, to bypass Canada’s pricey new hotel quarantine requirement.
“If I can avoid it, I’m going to do it,” said Brian Cross of Burlington, Ont., who is spending the winter with his wife, Anne, in Mesa, Ariz.
The couple originally planned to fly back to Canada in April. But that was before the federal government announced last week that, effective Monday, most air passengers entering Canada must take a COVID-19 test upon arrival and spend up to three days of their 14-day quarantine at a designated hotel to await their test results. (They can leave earlier if their results come back early.)
Travellers must foot the bill for their stay, which could cost upwards of $2,000, according to the government.
But the hotel quarantine rule doesn’t apply to travellers entering Canada by land, inspiring some like Cross to revise their plans.
“Common sense says, well, let’s do the path of least resistance, right? If I can save 4,000 bucks, why wouldn’t I do it?” he said, estimating the total hotel bill for two people.
Brian Cross in Mesa, Ariz., where he is spending the winter. Cross said when he returns to Canada, he plans to fly to Buffalo and then cross the border by foot to avoid the cost of quarantining in a hotel. (Submitted by Brian Cross)
If the hotel quarantine rule is still in effect when Cross, 63, and Anne, 61, return home in April, he said they plan to fly to Buffalo instead of Toronto. Then they’ll take a cab to the Rainbow Bridge land border crossing at Niagara Falls, N.Y., and walk across the border to Niagara Falls, Ont.
Cross said a couple of friends have agreed to drive his car to the Canadian side of the border and leave it there for him.
“We’ll just pick it up and drive home,” he said.
Cross and his wife will still have to adhere to other new measures designed to curb the spread of COVID-19. As of this week, land travellers must show proof of a negative COVID-19 test at the border and, starting Monday, must take another test on arrival and a third near the end of their 14-day quarantine.
But there will be no hotel stay, which Cross argues is unfair to people flying home.
“It’s kind of discriminatory that you fly and you’ve got to stay in a hotel, but you drive in, you don’t.”
WATCH | Hotel quarantinies coming for air travellers:
The federal government has announced dates for new travel measures meant to keep COVID-19 cases in check, including requiring proof of a negative test at land borders beginning Feb. 15 and introducing mandatory hotel quarantines for international air travellers as of Feb. 22. 2:17
Why the rules are different
The government said its new rules vary due to different circumstances at the land border.
Most leisure travelers enter Canada by air and, by funnelling all flights into four major airports, the government can ensure that arriving passengers check into nearby quarantine hotels.
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair says imposing the same requirement for the small number of leisure travellers entering by land poses a difficult challenge.
“At land borders we have 117 different points of entry and many of those points of entry are located in remote rural areas,” not near hotels or other amenities, said Blair during a news conference last week.
In an email statement sent by his office, Blair also said that the government has implemented effective measures for both land and air travellers.
“If people are not prepared to go through that rigour of keeping themselves and their communities safe, then I’d urge them to stay where they are, just to avoid all non-essential travel,” he said.
Ben Mallory of Burlington, Ont., is currently in Virginia, visiting his girlfriend, Abigail Bettenhausen. Mallory said he’ll cross on land returning to Canada because he can’t afford the cost of quarantining in a hotel. (Submitted by Ben Mallory)
Cross says he’s happy to comply with all the test requirements at the land border and argues travelling by land carries less risk because he doesn’t have to check into a hotel with multiple employees and other guests.
“My plan is, I don’t see anybody except the cab driver from Buffalo,” he said.
And he’s not the only Canadian air passenger planning to make a pit-stop at the land border on the way home.
Last month, Ben Mallory, who also lives in Burlington, flew to Lynchburg, Va., to visit his girlfriend. When he flies home in April, he too plans to land in Buffalo and then cross the border in Niagara Falls by foot.
Mallory said he understands why the government introduced the hotel quarantine requirement, but he’s still determined to avoid it because he can’t afford the price tag.
The 23-year-old e-commerce administrator graduated from university in April and didn’t land a job until September.
“A $2,000 sudden expense would be quite devastating,” he said. “That would put me in a negative balance with my bank account.”
Mallory says the government should cover the cost of the hotel bill, or at least provide financial assistance for travellers who need it.
“Having to quarantine in a facility with these prices, it just seems a bit ridiculous.”
On Sunday during an interview on CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live, Blair responded to a question about people who can’t afford the hotel bill.
“I think there will be ways in which we will find to manage those individuals, but, quite frankly, what we are urging Canadians to do right now is not travel,” he said.
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.
Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.
The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.
“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”
Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.
“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.
“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”
Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.
When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.
McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.
Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.
Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.
Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.
Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.
“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”
Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.
He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.
The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.
Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.
His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.
“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.
But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.
It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.
“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”
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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
