After 22 days, Montrealers in Cornwall are frustrated
‘It’s unbelievable what it does to your head,’ woman says about confinement
Montrealers Bryan Doyle and Lucie Mauro are only half-joking when they refer to themselves and the others in the Cornwall conference centre where they are quarantined as “inmates.”
The centre is surrounded by a chain-link fence and meals are trucked in and left, tepid, on the floor by the door to their room, although the meat loaf dinner on Monday night was “a high point,” Doyle said. The couple scrounged a cardboard box to serve as a second nightstand for their sparsely furnished 9-by-12-foot dorm-style room.
Doyle and Mauro are among 129 passengers who arrived back in Canada Feb. 21 aboard a charter flight from Japan last week. On the final night of a two-week cruise, the captain had announced over the intercom that a passenger who’d left the ship several days earlier had tested positive for the new coronavirus, now known as COVID -19, that had swept through China and sickened thousands. The couple spent the next two weeks confined to their cabin.
They have consistently tested negative for the virus and continue to have no symptoms. Ineffective containment measures on the ship meant that, ultimately, more than 600 people were infected.
“When we first came to this facility, we were on a little bit of a high — just to be back in our own country,” said Doyle, 63. “That euphoria has kind of worn off.”
Soon after they arrived, yellow tape was placed across an opening at the end of the asphalt path then chain-link fence was extended over the area, “so now we are completely caged in,” said Mauro, 65.
“Do they know how completely and totally dehumanizing that is? You feel like a leper.” She is concerned that the confinement will have long-lasting effects on many. “It’s unbelievable what it does to your head.”
There are twice a day health checks, during which nurses from Health Canada take their temperature and ask a series of questions about their health. People come in to sterilize the surfaces in their room. As of Wednesday afternoon, no one had shown signs of the virus.
Mauro and Doyle try to get outside five or six times a day, wearing the masks and gloves required when they leave their third-floor room, and maintain the required distance of six feet from everyone. They walk back and forth on the 300-foot asphalt path that cuts through a grassy area they call the “dog run” inside the chain-link fence. They watch movies on the television set in their room. Wait for meals. Doyle sends a daily email to 36 friends and relatives and replies to their responses: He called Wednesday’s post “Day 22 and not much to do.”
On Wednesday, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, announced she had authorized the release from quarantine of the 15 flight crew members who accompanied Mauro, Doyle and the other returning travellers. She said in a statement that she had “determined that they do not pose a risk of significant harm to public health.” They had followed “appropriate infection prevention and control protocols” and had no “unprotected contact” with passengers. On Sunday, Tam similarly authorized the release of six members of the Canadian Armed Forces medical staff and a Government of Canada employee who had been on the flight.
This was distressing to the couple. Having been in the same quarantine accommodation as the passengers, “we can’t fathom why they are free to go and we are being held,” Doyle said.
Mauro said that neither of them has had unprotected contact with passengers. And while Armed Forces medical staff had worn hazmat suits and face shields on the flight, they did not after arriving at the Cornwall Centre, she said. “Here they were just wearing face masks.”
“We would love officials to be forced to explain their actions and communicate what is in store,” Doyle said. “Why are we here after testing negative and being quarantined for 22 days and counting? Why were the flight crew and Canadian Armed Forces personnel released?”
“We feel like we are caught up in a political move, for the politicians to sit back and say, ‘Look what we are doing to protect the public.’ It doesn’t make any sense.”
It seems inevitable that COVID-19, which has already affected people in more than 30 countries, including Canada, will spread, he said. “Then what are they going to do?
“Everyone we deal with is very nice — and yet they can’t explain the logic,” Doyle said.
As difficult as their situation is, “the positive spin is that I really feel the 129 people have sort of developed a little community and for the most part, most of the people are very nice and very friendly and we are very supportive of each other.
“And I can’t say enough good about the health services workers and the Red Cross people, most of whom are volunteers. They are wonderful and doing the best job they can do and I make sure to tell them that very day. They couldn’t be more compassionate or kinder.”