Florida feels like another planet compared with Quebec
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/josh-freed-florida-feels-like-another-planet-compared-with-quebecA friend told me about an available condo in Florida, my wife and I made a last-second decision to briefly escape and work remotely. But the second we landed, it felt like we’d arrived on another planet.
While Quebec is in full confinement mode, Florida is Cowboyland, where you barely know COVID is happening, despite much higher new case and hospitalization rates than ours .
It’s lunacy by Canadian standards, but an eye-opening experience. For starters, everyone’s out and about, filling bars, restaurants, movies, gyms, and jam-packed sports arenas.
Stores and supermarkets don’t require masks but some cashiers and customers wear them, though often under their nose or chin — Florida-style. It seems a way of announcing: “Look — I’m masked!” when they’re not.
Restaurants are fully open and peeking into some, they’re mobbed. Waiters can choose whether to wear masks, and at least half don’t.
In ever-friendly America, some customers even shake hands with their waiters before leaving, to say: “Thanks, I’ll have some germs for dessert.”
It’s easy to spot Canadians at restaurants, as we’re the ones properly masked and nervously sitting on the terrace, even in the rain.
You can see the difference in the media, too. In Quebec, COVID totally dominates the news, because there’s almost nothing else happening.
In Florida, it’s the reverse.
I checked the prestigious Miami Herald recently on a day Florida had risen to more than 70,000 new daily cases — almost twice as many per capita as Quebec, much like their hospitalizations.
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Florida's great for reminding people of what they love about home also. 
Your son obviously knows how to live here, even if he's missing some of the fun he should be having.
Us too. We've been visiting some historic places and nature preserves we might never have otherwise. If it's not pop-culture famous -- including famous for its crowds, the crowds aren't there. I've always been big on visiting gardens, and this spring we're going to hit a few we haven't been to since before this.
Spring'll likely be in full swing while you're here. Enjoy!
My husband's an outdoorsman who loves to be outside but hates the cold, and after retiring near our son in Georgia (from CA, where he worked at a tech at JPL) I could see that wintering in an easy chair wasn't going to be good for him. So here we are while our GA driveway is covered in ice. Summer's the season that tries to kill you in FL, of course. Your son sounds very smart all around, and how nice for you.
Asking for a friend ....
I live in Florida too I’ve been fully Vaccinated, wear a mask to all public events. I go to the grocery store and patio restaurants to eat, but I stay mainly outdoors at other gatherings of family and friends. Most of my friends do the same and and none of us have gotten Covid yet. I think taking precautions and acting with good sense is the thing to do no matter where you are. But let’s talk about all the people who are bashing Florida right now. It would appear that all of YOUR friends and neighbors are here right now, because we can barely turn on to the road in the morning to go to work, or find a seat in a restaurant or at a checkout aisle in the supermarket. And those out of state plates are from all over the country. So no offense intended, but like Earth-Shine says… Bye.
used to work there as home health nurse. I watched a couple of night rockets go up from the cape at a patient’s house near the beach… awesome.We moved to the Keys years ago. Chilly here too today, 60’s this morning. But glorious sunshine. 
including in the beginning when the death rate among the elderly was a dreadful 80% and some elder care facilities whose residents couldn't escape were turning into abattoirs.
A good way for comparison is simple: How many deaths per 100,000 since the beginning.
NY 326
NJ 346
FL 297
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/
One reason more obvious than others for FL's lower rate is that most of the 20% of Floridians over 65 are retired and almost immediately were able to isolate early and stay isolated, and later vaccinate. Depraved spreaders both from and visiting FL's public spaces encouraged that. Another might be that some deaths were of people whose main residence was in another state and who took their statistic home with them.
