BIRD TALK

I have just returned from Texas after spending 3 1/2 months in the Rio Grande Valley. I thought that the association might be able to provide some data. What is your estimate about how many snowbirds travelled to the U.S. sunbelt over the past winter? For snowbirds with Medipac, I was wondering how many claims were reported in respect to COVID? I figure that most returning snowbirds were fully vaccinated. Since the government closely tracks each returning snowbird, I would be curious how many vaccinated snowbirds have tested for COVID? The Federal Government should have the data on that. On our return, they specifically asked if we had been vaccinated. It would be greatly appreciated if you could shed some light on issues.

Brian Fitzpatrick
High River, AB

Ed.: Based on our statistics and estimates, we believe that about 500,000 snowbirds travelled to the U.S. last winter. The Conference Board of Canada indicates that during the first five months of the winter travel season (Nov-Mar), there were 824,000 Canadians who took an outbound trip (to anywhere), compared to 12.8 million in winter 2019-20. Medipac had 16 COVID claims during that same time period, with only one being in excess of one million dollars, but we insured only about 25,000 of those snowbirds. I would love to have the real government statistics related to any component of COVID. What I do know is that every snowbird who returned by plane had a negative COVID test BEFORE they were allowed to board. They were then subjected to two more COVID tests in the next eight days. My guess is that these tests were all negative; ours were. Three tests in 10 days is ridiculous, of course.