Bill Holtby and his wife Donna are two of many St. Albertans trying to navigate their way back to Canada during the pandemic.
The couple has been in Costa Rica for eight weeks and is on their way home.
“It’s a bit surreal. You’re in the middle of a pandemic and you’re in a second world country,” Bill said.
When the couple left Canada at the beginning of February, they didn’t foresee COVID-19 becoming a worldwide pandemic.
“It certainly wasn't the pandemic. (Our trip) was just regular winter travel and (COVID-19) should sort itself out,” Bill said.
“We're pretty practical people so if there was any risk at that time, we certainly wouldn't have traveled. But at that time, there was absolutely no risk. Canadians were traveling around the world, just not to China.”
Getting back to St. Albert during a pandemic is going to only be half the battle, though. Once they get here, they have to find a way to get back to their house without potentially contaminating anyone else on the way.
They don’t want to infect anybody as they leave the airport so the couple has arranged for a family member to drop their car off at the airport so they don’t take any public forms of transportation to get to their home.
“We do not want to spread an illness if we have one or catch one,” Bill said.
The couple has also arranged for a family member to stockpile their cupboards and fridge with food before they get home so they can easily self quarantine for 14 days.
The Holtbys originally scheduled their flight back to Canada this past week. They looked to see if they could get an earlier flight out of the country, but any earlier flights would pass through the United States, and they decided they didn’t want to take the risk to fly through that country. They decided to stick with their original flight, which flew directly from Costa Rica to Canada.
“The most relevant health message for us was the fact that we could get isolated in Costa Rica and if we were to get sick the health system is inferior to what we would receive in Alberta. That is a unnecessary risk.”
Holtby said they felt relatively safe in Costa Rica for the time being, but were feeling a bit more nervous about flying home.
“That’s probably the one point that we have a concern of potentially getting infected is going to the airport and there'll be the crowds at the airport, because everybody's trying to get out,” Bill said.
“And then who in the crowd has the virus?”
The Holtbys are following all of Canada health’s directions about washing hands and using hand sanitizers.
This week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked all Canadians travelling abroad to come home.
