Inadvertent Comedy

 From our friends to the North...

To fly home we needed a COVID PCR test, almost impossible to come by in Montreal, with lineups hours long at most hospitals. Consequently, the Quebec government won’t allow anyone but the very sick to take them, while travellers must go to private clinics and pay perhaps $200.

Meanwhile, every Florida pharmacy does free PCR tests, even for travelling foreigners. It seems bizarre in a country with no universal medicare, where people are often bankrupted by medical bills.

But when we went for our free test at a pharmacy, there were a dozen people waiting, all wearing masks, the only place I’d seen that all week.

For the first time, it felt a bit like home.