From Jonathan Wolfe:
There was a brief moment this fall, when Covid-19 cases were low and we hadn’t yet heard the word “tripledemic,” that I thought we might have something close to a normal holiday season, for the first time in years. But the last few weeks have changed the picture.
A soup of Omicron variants is swirling across the U.S., and we don’t yet know how much these variants will spread this winter. Meanwhile, a surge in flu and R.S.V. cases is already stretching hospitals thin, and we still have months of cold weather ahead.
For advice on managing the holidays this year, I turned to my colleague Dani Blum, a reporter on the Well desk.
How should we approach the holidays?
This is our third pandemic holiday season, so a lot of us are really tired of taking precautions and the mental gymnastics they require.
So my main advice this year is to make a plan. I know how uncomfortable it can be to call up your relatives and ask them, “When are you testing?” and “How are you thinking about virus precautions this year?” But thinking through some of these obstacles together and getting on the same page may alleviate a lot of anxiety and tension.
The other major thing to keep in mind is to plan around the highest-risk person. The calculations are going to be different for a family with older relatives than for a Friendsgiving of twentysomethings where no one is immunocompromised. Another thing experts I spoke to advised was to do a mini-quarantine before the holidays.
How does that work?
A mini-quarantine means spending about a week minimizing your interactions with people before you gather. So maybe you have the ability to work from home instead of going into the office. Do that. Maybe that week you only meet friends outdoors, or go grocery shopping at the least crowded time, or order groceries to your house. It’s also not the time to be going to a packed bar or restaurant. Depending on how high-risk the most vulnerable person in your group is, your weeklong mini-quarantine can be on a gradient.
Why one week?
It’s not going to completely insulate you from risk, of course, but if you’re watching for symptoms and testing responsibly, you’ll have a pretty good idea during that week whether you have Covid. The experts I spoke to said it’s about minimizing your risk, along with testing, to give yourself as much data as possible so you can make the best decisions.
What else should we keep in mind?
In terms of masking, I think it’s not super realistic to ask people to mask for something like a Thanksgiving dinner. Where masking makes the most sense is during transportation to and from an event. If you are getting on a plane or a train, you want to make sure that you’re wearing a mask for as long as possible, and not just any mask but a high-quality mask. The experts I spoke to had a lot of confidence in one-way masking. Even if you are the only person on a plane wearing a mask, it still provides decent protection.
Also, this is a big one: If you feel sick — as sad as it is — you should stay home, even if that means skipping out on family gatherings over the holidays. You might have Covid, you might have the flu, or you might have R.S.V. You might be able to rule out Covid with a test, but it’s harder with the other two. And an important thing to know about R.S.V. is that adults can get it, too. And while it might be mild for you, it can be very serious for older adults, younger children and people with weakened immune systems.
What should I do if I get Covid?
The C.D.C.’s current guidance is to stay at home at least five days and isolate from others as much as possible.
I should also say that new Omicron variants are steadily gaining ground in the U.S., and it’s not totally clear yet what’s going to happen with them. Cases are currently ticking up, and there are other viruses circulating. We know that a lot of the precautions that we take for Covid will also help manage the flu and R.S.V., like washing our hands and masking. So, despite many places no longer requiring masks, and despite a lot of people — myself included — allowing more risk into our lives, there are still plenty of reasons to take Covid precautions around the holidays.
How are you personally approaching the holidays?
I’m going home, and I have a relatively large family. I’m doing a mini-quarantine one week before, and I’ll be testing with both P.C.R. and rapid tests right up until the moment I see them. My life may look a little restrictive leading up to the holidays, but then during the holidays it will look like any other. I’ll be able to act normally, share meals and hug my siblings. It should be really lovely — it just requires some advance planning.