Deborah Levy just wants to go home.
From a quarantine hotel near Pearson International Airport, she says she just wants to see her family.
To say that she's had a rough few months would be an understatement. In August her father passed away in South Africa and then just six weeks ago her sister passed away there as well.
In the meantime, Canada moved swiftly to impose travel restrictions on South Africa and other southern African countries on Nov. 26 after the discovery of the contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19.
Canadians coming back from those countries have to obtain a negative test before they leave, another negative test in a third country before continuing on to Canada and must stay in a quarantine hotel until receiving a negative test after landing in the country.
Levy managed to come home Sunday via a layover in Frankfurt. The Vaughan mom was hoping she might be allowed to quarantine at home after explaining her ordeal to officials at the airport. She wasn't given an exemption and she wasn't tested. She was taken to a quarantine hotel and handed a thermometer and an information sheet about Covid, she said. A day later she was still waiting for a test.
About 24 hours after landing staff in full protective gear finally came to her room and administered the COVID test.
“They said the results would come back between 24 and 36 hours, and then we have to wait for the Red Cross to release you. The Red Cross report can come in also anywhere up to 36 hours. So there's some people who have actually been here for days,” Levy told CP24.com from her hotel room.
“I’ve had so much stress over the last few months and this is the cherry on top.”
It's not just waiting for test results that is stressful, it's the lack of information. Levy says people in hazmat suits run away from her as if she has bubonic plague when she tries to talk to them and she is passed from one organization to the next when she calls the health unit or the Red Cross to try and get some clarity.
She's not alone. Groups of travellers stuck in the quarantine hotels have been communicating over WhatsApp groups, sharing bits of information they manage to glean about the process they have to pass through before being allowed to leave. Some have reached out to their MPs, family members, rabbis and lawyers to try to get help navigating a Kafkaesque system that they say feels “absurd.”
Lucille and Mickey Narun flew back to Canada on Sunday from South Africa. The seniors were also hoping to quarantine at home, but instead waited two days in a hotel room for a test. They're still not sure if they eventually got it because it was their turn, or because they lobbied MP Carolyn Bennett. Now they’re waiting for their results.
“We landed on Sunday expecting to be tested there and then at the airport. Unfortunately, it's taken until now, a couple of hours ago to be tested,” Lucile told CP24 Tuesday night.
She said many of the people on the WhatsApp group are very anxious and some of them have been waiting days for their test results.
“And then once you get a negative result, doesn't mean you can leave the hotel immediately. You have to get a public health officer to approve you to leave and that can take one, two, three, four days,” she said.
She pointed out that while she and Mickey have each other in quarantine, others are alone and isolated, some unable to go outside at all.
While they aren’t being charged for their prolonged stay at the Hilton, Mickey said he and his fellow taxpayers are in fact footing the bill at the end of the day.
Levy said that at one point she imagined just walking out, but her son who is a criminal lawyer, sent her a text "with many exclamation points” telling her to follow the rules.
Compounding the confusion about their situation is information from public health officials that Omicron — whose entry into Canada the quarantine hotels are meant to prevent — will be the dominant variant in the province by the end of the week.
CP24.com reached out to the federal government to ask whether there are any plans to modify the hotel quarantine requirement for some travellers in light of the fact that the variant is already spreading wildly among the local population.
In an email, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said it “takes complaints from travellers at designated quarantine facilities (DQF) seriously.”
The email from PHAC said each traveller and their individual needs are assessed at the airport.
“The staff at the quarantine facility aim to fulfill specific accommodation needs or requests, unless the traveller does not disclose information on their needs or medical history (including allergies, dietary restrictions, and medications),” the agency stated. “When travellers are in a quarantine facility, they are provided with three meals daily and other essentials. All of these items are delivered to their rooms. They also have access to a toll-free phone number where they can identify essential items that they require.”
Most of the travellers seem to report that the accommodations are comfortable, though assessments about the food vary (Levy says she has gotten nothing she can eat aside from a couple of bags of chips so far). But they all agree they want to get back to their lives.
“I feel desperately sorry for the people who are working here because they are just actually doing their job, you know, the people who are bringing up the food and cleaning. And I'm sure everybody's been blasting them because they're aggravated and these people are just doing their job,” Levy said. “So all in all, it's a bit crazy. I don't think the left arm knows what the right arm is doing.”
