Josh Freed: Latest COVID Variation Means Another Cautious Christmas

Welcome to another Christmas season in which we must isolate ourselves, not congregate; another No-el with no bars, no shows and no parties.

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It’s starting to look a lot like last Christmas.

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Welcome to another Christmas season in which we must isolate ourselves, not congregate; another No-el with no bars, no shows and no parties.

But on December 31st, you can at least sit in a restaurant until 10pm (for now) and yell “Happy New Year!” – two hours before.

It will be another cautious Christmas. At small family gatherings, instead of the host offering you an eggnog at the door, they will give you a 20-minute COVID home test to take before you are allowed in.

“UPS! Mom just tested positive! Everybody back up five feet and stamp it in the bedroom.”

This Christmas party pooper is the latest viral update on COVID – the superpreader variant called Omicron.

Many of us are not even sure how to pronounce it , with common “variants” ranging from OHmicron to OMicron, OMYcron and Omnicron, because it is ubiquitous (that’s President Biden’s version).

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The variant has also spawned several other new words, to fuel our growing VOC vocabulary, adding to previous COVID words and phrases such as “social distancing”, “flattening the curve” and “asymptomatic”.

In the last week, many of us sound like amateur doctors, casually using phrases like: “I heard that PCR molecular tests are 99 percent accurate at detecting mutations in RNA, while antigen tests primarily detect nucleocapsid protein ( N). … Or is it the other way around? “

Quebec once again leads Canada in most new daily cases, which is strange given that we are among the most vaccinated in Canada and probably North America. So why us?

I suspect it’s because we’re also the best mixers in Canada, and we’re more likely to hang out at parties, clubs, and restaurants to share joy and germs.

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If our vaccines get us through Omicron safely, there are already rumors about emerging variants called “Megatron” and “Parmesan,” an Italian variant that spreads through pasta.

It is also worrying that the word Omicron has already used all 15 th letter of the Greek alphabet. If many more variants appear, we may have to switch to Roman numerals, with names like COVID XXXXXXVIIII.

Another new wrinkle is that since we started socializing indoors again in the fall, the cold season has returned in a rage. With more than 9,000 COVID cases a day and more than 90,000 colds, it is difficult to know who has what.

I had a cold several weeks ago and the test came back negative. But now I have a chronic winter cough and colds, so every time I show either one, everyone in the vicinity recoils like I’m a suicide bomber.

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Someone should pull out shirts that say “

“I tested negative. It’s just a cold. “

As the cold season continues, will we need to get tested every time we wake up with a sneeze? If so, we may need six billion home tests, not six million.

The good news is that so far Omicron looks like a “Corona lite” virus with much less chance of seeing you hospitalized, according to recent British studies and others . But it spreads much faster.

In New York, it is already so common that a headline this week asked if there was anyone in the city who no have Omicron.

I know too many Montréal’s who have caught COVID in the past week, from a women’s poker night to a men’s hockey league. But all were fully vaccinated, and none have exhibited serious symptoms, if any, thus far.

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But even if Omicron proves less dangerous than its previous COVID cousins, it is a danger to our hospitals. If two million Montréal’s get COVID lite, even a minuscule percent of hospitalization could overwhelm exhausted healthcare staff.

Getting tested for COVID is already a challenge. Thousands of us have lined up for free self-test kits at pharmacies that sold out almost immediately.

On Tuesday, the outdoor line-ups were so long that Jean Coutu posted a message online warning “His estimated wait time is more than 15 hours.”

Despite renewed Christmas anxiety, the atmosphere in the city is better than last year’s Lockdown Christmas. Now that we mostly have double or triple voids, we feel a little more secure.

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Most people only keep a bunk three feet from others on the sidewalks, up from eight feet last year, and hardly anyone quarantines their mail.

Many also go ahead with their travel plans, unlike last year, although the potential downside is worth considering.

People I know were in Europe recently and unexpectedly tested positive just before going home. Both had to cancel their flight and remain there in quarantine, until they tested negative.

One never showed symptoms, but tested positive for more than 10 days, while spending $ 1,000 on tests, plus hotel and flight costs. So if you travel, make sure you have an extra 10 days and lots of extra money.

The best-scenario imaginable is that Omicron is mild or harmless to most people, but eventually spreads to replace other, more deadly COVID variants, such as apparently helped end the Spanish flu .

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It’s probably wishful thinking, but on our second COVID Christmas, we need to make some wishes come true.

Happy Holidays everyone. Stay positive, test negative! And if you have a cold, don’t cough.

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