countries as long as the traveler has proof of
vaccination and a negative COVID-19 test. Land
travel will require proof of vaccination but no test.
Eirini Linardaki was already in Paris, making her
way from her home in Crete to her partner of
seven years in New York City on a series of four
flights. The visual artist said the travel restrictions
were especially hard on people in nontraditional
relationships. But at 45, it’s not so easy for her to
just move to America.
“I have kids and a career, and I also have him,”
she said. “I love him, so I have to make it fit into
the structure of my life.”
Loved ones have missed holidays, birthdays and
funerals while nonessential air travel was barred
from a long list of countries that includes most
of Europe, Brazil and South Africa. Closures at
the land crossings with Mexico and Canada have
devastated the border towns where traveling
back and forth, sometimes daily, is a way of life.
Before the border closure, Montreal junior
college teacher Gina Granter and her partner
in New York City saw each other at least twice a
month. Now, between the closures, quarantine
rules and other restrictions, they’ve managed
to see each other only three times since the
beginning of the pandemic.
When her partner finally was able to travel to
see them after missing their daughter’s second
birthday, the little girl didn’t remember him,
Granter said.
“I have a brother named Steven, and she was
calling her dad ‘other Steven’ or occasionally
‘Granddad,’” Granter said. “She had no memories
of being with him in New York.”