Thursday December 23, 2021 | SOUTH VANCOUVER ISLAND, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Anything anyone can do at this time to prevent transmission of Omicron is the kindest Christmas gift of all.
Additional public health measures are in place to protect people and our health care system, as COVID-19 cases go up.
That includes new Public Health Officer’s orders for the period December 23, 2021 through January 18, 2022, which essentially seeks to enforce small-size gatherings; there is also closure of businesses where transmission more often occurs – such as bars, gyms, etc.
BC Health is bringing in more rapid testing in the new year, doing a faster roll-out of boosters (starting in January), and postponing non-urgent surgeries starting Jan 4 (so that appropriately skilled health-care staff can be shifted to the immunization program).
Dr Henry’s gifts to BC:
While no roll-out is perfect, BC’s top doctor has saved more lives than we’ll ever really know. Dr Henry is also protecting the data integrity as much as possible, as a way to finish up this infectious storm and hopefully have intel to deal even better with the next one.
Dr Henry has been on the leading edge of studying the right (most effective) interval between doses of the COVID vaccine, settling for most of this year on a six-month interval (though with a blip in August and September 2021 where a 28-day interval was allowed for the return-to-campus population).
Special child-friendly COVID immunization centres were set up for kids age 5 to 11 years, to help facilitate rapid vaccination of that age cohort that remained unvaccinated until shots started December 4.
Dr Henry kept K-12 schools open during most of COVID (the only full closure was at the very beginning, in spring 2020), and managed to produce a relatively successful return-to-campus for the post-secondary sector in September 2021.
Some COVID-safety gift ideas:
- Helping COVID-vulnerable neighbours or family with grocery shopping
- Give food-basket gifts, to save your family members or loved ones another trip to the grocery store where COVID exposure could happen.
- Wear a mask indoors — even in your own home — if you are entertaining family or friends.
- An N95 mask, with a big Xmas bow on it!
- Extra packages of the blue medical masks, for purse, car, office and household.
- Reminder of how to test the general effectiveness of any non-N95 mask you might wear: put on the mask, hold your hand out about six to eight inches from your face, and blow really hard. If you can feel the force of your breath, the mask is not effective enough. Tip: wear two medical masks, one over the other. Works like a charm!
- Stay healthy. That’s a great gift to the hard-working health-care workers who won’t have to tend to you over the holiday season.
- Remember to open the windows wherever you are gathered indoors.
- *Don’t* visit people if there’s a danger of exposure or spread of COVID.
- Other than in your own household, don’t hug people or shake their hand. That is *not* friendly during COVID.
- Remember that the COVID virus is airborne. That’s how Omicron spreads so quickly (in addition to the fact that it seems to settle in the nasal cavity and upper respiratory tract, unlike the original SARS-CoV-2 that sought out deep lung tissue).
- Drive safely, spare emergency responders the trouble of having to rescue you on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or Boxing Day, so they can have a break too!
Being kind to the environment:
Remember to responsibly dispose of your face masks, gloves and other single-use PPE.
===== RELATED:
Snow in the Christmas weekend forecast (December 22, 2021)
New COVID public health orders start at 11:59 pm on Dec 22 (December 21, 2021)
