They should do a study to see if part of the problem might lie in the bus trip to the hotel. Nothing like mixing dozens of passengers together from all over the world into a bus in the name of safety.
The problem is Canadian and non Canadian citizens arriving from heavily infected countries with no proper testing. Until the Canadian government refuses entry to people without proper negative tests and airlines in infected countries refuse to board people without proper tests, the problem will get worse. Send one flight load of international travellers without proper testing back to their home country and the message will be sent around the world.
The flow of international travellers to Canada has never stopped. The ban on flights from India and Pakistan is only for a month. What happens after that? The government wrongly focused on Canadians returning from the DR and Mexico to give the appearance of doing something serious while keeping the back door open for the rest of the world.
An outbreak in a Covid hotel is not surprising. It was inevitable. If you concentrate infected travellers in one area, infection spread is inevitable. If it happens in medical facilities where stringent protocols are adhered to, it’s definitely going to happen in facilities with laxer controls. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the obvious.
One of my friends from Quebec just returned to Canada via the US to Montreal. She was quoted a price of $300 a night, breakfast only, in a designated Covid hotel. Four days before her arrival, she was informed the price was now $800 a night.
Price gouging, infection breakouts, inadequately trained hotel staff and security guards, poor quality food and room cleaning services, are just a few of the problems associated with the hotels.
The newest problem is the home Covid test kits given to arriving travellers by the Canadian government. After 8 days isolation your supposed to test yourself and report the results. People are not doing it, some because they haven’t isolated and are infected. They are out in public infecting others. The tracking and enforcement promised by the federal government is not being done rendering the system ineffective.
