[BillyMac]

Just when some of us thought that there was some light head at the end of the COVID tunnel, re-surging Delta and Omicron, are dampening our expectations.

My daughter, an OBGYN M.D. (with an MS in International Pubic Health), was planning on having her two siblings, their families, myself, my ex-wife and her husband, four grandchildren in all, over for Christmas dinner on Saturday. Everyone has been fully vaccinated except her three under-age children.

She's been pretty calm and has not overreacted throughout the pandemic, even as her husband worked just north of New York City when it was USA ground zero at the start of this mess. She didn't even jump at getting her booster (as I did), waiting a few weeks for a convenient time. Sends her three kids to day care (a Petri dish of germs) even though both myself and my ex-wife are available to baby sit (as we have when any of the kids have been symptomatic and have been quarantined at home before passing COVID tests).

Fearing for her three unvaccinated children, and those of us considered "elderly", she has asked all of us to double mask when we go out in public all this coming week (games, gym, grocery shopping, church, and an in-and-out wake for me) and has "suggested" that we all take at-home COVID test before coming, masking up in her home on Christmas when we are not eating.

And my son (not a medical professional), who lives out of state (car ride), possibly overreacting, has decided not to bring his entire family, just himself. His family is fully protected (as much as they can be), not only are all fully vaccinated, but two in his household have also had the disease (natural immunity). He was one of the first (March 2020) in the country to quarantine after attending a sociology convention in New Orleans where several attendees contracted COVID, so he's been a little gun shy during the entire pandemic, as has been his Chinese wife, it seems that Asians are more concerned about communicable diseases (i.e., often wearing masks during flu season) than most Americans. They kept my grandson home from school, by choice, all of of last year (2020-21). Odd that his family has taken the most precautions and yet, two got COVID, when nobody else in my family (including my nurse daughter who has spent much of the last twenty months testing symptomatic COVID patients) got it.

Yikes!

Merry COVID Christmas, again.