Corona-zona

Yesterday's New York Times had a  story about people circumventing U.S. restrictions on testing for people traveling home from abroad. They are exploiting a loophole in the laws that requires tests for people entering the country by air but not by land.  So people who go abroad and test positive change their flights to arrive in Canada or Mexico then drive across the border. Because they have, y'know, shit to do ! One woman at least gave some consideration to her state of health and whether she might be infectious, but ultimately said she didn't follow the rules because she thought they were dumb: I had zero symptoms, no fever, nothing. I felt fine and when you’re stateside, the C.D.C. says you can end isolation five days after testing positive, so the same rules should apply when I’m traveling. It makes no sense that I can go to a wedding five days after a positive test in Miami, but if I catch the virus when I’m on vacation I can’t fly home. That should be illegal. She ...

  Today's post is by Corona-zona Senior Canada Correspondent Salishsailor. Many countries have set hard border closures as a way to block the spread of COVID-19. Canada is one of them. All “nonessential” travel across the U.S.-Canada border has been blocked since mid-March 2020. What’s “nonessential” and what’s “essential,” though, depends on where you stand.   Literally. At the national level, “essential” means “ any nondiscretionary travel ,” which is equivalent to saying that essential means . . . what, obligatory? Mandatory? Who knows? The hard closures might better allow people to comply if authorities circulated behavioral descriptions of the terms. At the national level it remains murky . British Columbia—the province I’m most focused on, because I’m moving to BC when I can get access—has made a stab at defining cross-border “essential” travel. Included are such reasons as fleeing the risk of abuse or violence; working, both paid and volunteer; getting healthcare;...

  Today's post is by Corona-zona Senior Canada Correspondent Salishsailor A few weeks ago, Canada was ranked #44 in number of vaccine shots administered per population among the 84 nations with over a million people.  Today it comes in at #36 . Canada is up to #19 , if you count just shots given per 100 persons. [ Which you should  whenever you're making comparisons—Editor ]  The upward curve in number of vaccinations is tracking the US curve but remains at about half the US daily rate—0.37 per 100 population versus the US rate of 0.74, according to Our World in Data . But with the Canadian plan for massively increasing vaccine availability, every adult could be vaccinated by Canada Day (usually celebrated on July first).  Aside from vaccination rates, though, Canada appears to have the edge on all other nations in future immunity testing.  A research team at the University of Toronto led by Dr. Igor Staglijar have used the enzyme that light...

  Today's post is by Corona-zona Senior Canada Correspondent Salishsailor As I write this post it’s snowing here on Moscow Mountain in northern Idaho.  Again.  It has snowed every day for the past week, and the berms the plow has heaped along the driveway are up to seven feet high. Meanwhile on Gabriola Island in British Columbia—our intended settling place once the border reopens—it’s 9˚C (that’s slightly over 48˚F to you people south of the border) with showers predicted for this afternoon. Admittedly, much of Canada is colder and snowier than Idaho. Canadian expats living in Texas say they’re weathering the recent winter storms better than Texans.  And as Canada falls further behind other countries in vaccination rates, those expats are lining up for shots in the States .   Back in Canada there’s some anxiety and resentment over snowbirds getting vaccinations.  In addition, anxiety-fueled Covid-shaming calls out neighbors who don’t follow soci...

Today's post is by Corona-zona Senior Canada Correspondent Salishsailor While I wait for the border between the United States and Canada to reopen, I keep track of how our boreal neighbor and its provinces have been managing the pandemic.  My wife and I are planning to pull up roots in Idaho and replant them in British Columbia as soon as the border opens. That’s where you’ll find Canada's  best climate and one of its most socially progressive populations .  I’ve lived most of my life in the US, the country of my birth. In the 1990s I lived in Spain for half a year and, prior to that, in Japan for two years. But I’ve never lived north of the border, even though I’m a Canadian citizen. So, naturally I would want to compare Canada’s record with the US. It’s clear that Canada’s effort to control the invasion of the coronavirus and limit the number of COVID-19 cases beat the Trump Administration’s actions—by a wide margin.   According to Our World In Data , the US...