Although I spend a good amount of time in this blog taking potshots at German admin, admin remains a universal constant like death or taxes. (Just more painful and permanent than either. That being said, German admin has found a way to bureaucratize death too …) And a recent trip to Canada proved just that …
Despite the current wane in the pandemic, to the point where U.S. President Joe Biden recently declared it to be over, Canada still has a number of corona restrictions in place when you enter the country by plane. (But, strangely enough, not by land or sea. Apparently, some admin type took it a little too literally when they heard that corona is an airborne virus.) So, masks are mandatory on all flights to Canada (as opposed to only being “recommended” on Ryanair) and you have to be fully vaccinated to avoid automatic quarantining and testing.
But even the fully vaccinated aren’t automatically in the clear because there is still random, mandatory testing. Those winning this lottery get informed about it by e-mail within fifteen minutes after clearing customs and have to complete the testing by the end of the next day.
Now, although I’ve been firmly on the side of caution, if not overcautiously caution, throughout the pandemic, the implementation of this whole random testing system is oh-so wrong in oh-so-many ways …
- It’s unnecessarily complicated (even for admin)
The simplest solution would be to be informed of the random testing while you’re still in customs, especially given that everyone has to fill in their declaration on a computer terminal anyway. Then they can whisk away those lucky few for a free (nasal) cavity search and get some actual, initial results within those 15 minutes using a rapid antigen test. If they turn out to be positive, then they can put you in quarantine while they PCR you on top of that to be sure.
But instead …
The whole thing is outsourced to several private companies. The best you can do at the airport is to pick up one of their home test kits. Or, if you miss the e-mail (which we did because we simply didn’t think about it having already been awake for about 17 hours, stupidly jet-lagged, and just plain eager to get the hell outa there), you could pick up your kit later at a designated provider or have it delivered to you by courier. After having first chosen the latter, more convenient option, we soon discovered that the delivery time was a mere two to three days—or one to two days after the end of the next day by which we had to take the test.
So after picking up the test instead—in no small part because of the incessant e-mails informing us of our continuing non-compliance with our mandatory testing—we had to make an appointment with the private company so that one of their employees could watch us take the test over video. Then, under the same watchful eye of the same watchful employee, we had to seal up the vial, put it back in the test box, seal up the test box, put it in a courier bag, seal up the courier bag, and, for reasons still completely unknown to us, sterilize the entire outside of said bag with the provided miniature alcohol swab. Once all that was done, we still had to arrange for the courier to pick up the bag to whisk it away to the labs of the company three provinces over.
Waaaaaaay simpler, right?
- It takes too long
Although we got our results back in only four days, it could take up to two weeks to get your result depending on the delivery and analysis times. Or, in other words, if you had been positive when you landed, you won’t be anymore when you find out that you are.
Even worse: because you weren’t officially positive for those four days to two weeks, you didn’t have to enter quarantine and could still use public transportation. Or, in other words, happily and unknowingly officially infecting a whole bunch of Canadians whom these measures are designed to protect.
- It costs too much
All this nonsense is provided free of charge, probably about the only good thing about it if you’re not a Canadian taxpayer. That includes all the tests, all the staff watching you impale your skull with a Q-tip via video, all the toll-free time spent on hold trying to figure out what’s going on, and all the courier shipping costs.
Remember my all-in-one airport solution? Not only is it much simpler, but it’s probably also much cheaper. But then, isn’t having your tax dollars supporting private companies the essence of a free-market economy these days?
- It’s running now?!
Ol’ Sleepy Joe might be jumping the gun a little (but with the midterms around the corner, the truth always takes a bit of a breather), but the pandemic is certainly waning at the moment. It certainly wasn’t waning the last time we visited Canada in March when exactly none of this was implemented.
Fortunately, the fun and profiteering have to end sometime and reports are that all this randomized, mandatory testing (as well as vaccination requirements of any kind) will end on September 30th. Sigh. Had we only waited another two weeks …
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