Lori Laumbach, right, and her daughter Jenna Schlender at home in Sherwood Park, Alta.Amber Bracken/The Globe and Mail
Lori Laumbach and her husband will be staying at home in Edmonton over the holidays, where they will have Christmas dinner with her parents and otherwise forgo any gatherings. This is partly because it seems like the safe thing to do, and partly because she doesn’t want to jeopardize a trip they have booked to the Dominican Republic in January.
“Other years often we would go and join some other friends at house parties, but I think that still doesn’t seem like the responsible thing to do right now, especially because I want to go away,” says Ms. Laumbach, who runs a children’s entertainment company.
The trip, originally booked for early 2020 and their first since the fall of 2019, isn’t just a break from work for her and her husband, who is in law enforcement, but a much-needed reprieve from the stress of the pandemic, Ms. Laumbach says.
“It’s the mental-health break of just not having to watch the numbers every day.”
As a second COVID-19 holiday season approaches, this one amid concern and uncertainty over the Omicron variant, some Canadians say they need an escape from pandemic life and are planning small gatherings, staycations and even travel to far-flung destinations. But those plans may change depending on what we learn about Omicron in the coming weeks.
The desire to celebrate with friends and family is understandable, but Stephen Hoption Cann, a clinical professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, says people should exercise the utmost caution given what we already do know about the new variant.
“Unfortunately a Christmas gathering is kind of the ideal setting to spread this variant. You’ve got people at the table without their masks exposed to each other for prolonged periods in indoor settings,” he says. “Obviously the smaller the group the better. The less likely you’re going to have one person in that group that has the virus. But it only takes one to spread it to everybody else.”
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Dr. Hoption Cann points to a corporate Christmas party last month in Oslo, where 19 attendees have since tested positive for the Omicron variant despite the fact that everyone was vaccinated and tested negative prior to the event.
His advice to anyone planning on attending holiday celebrations this year? “Limit your numbers and check symptoms beforehand.”
Up until a few weeks ago, Debbie Lee, a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine who lives in Vancouver, was considering flying to Ontario to spend the holidays with family. But the risk of getting COVID-19 – and the fallout of what would happen if she or anyone in her family did – persuaded her to stay put.
“It’s more so what comes with it – the isolation, the loss of work,” she says.
Ms. Lee, her husband and their two children, 5 and 3, have twice had to self-isolate already because the kids were exposed to friends who tested positive for the virus.
“Now I’m super uptight about what we do,” she says.
Instead of getting on a plane, Ms. Lee booked two days at a hotel in downtown Vancouver, where her kids can swim in the pool and she and her husband can pretend, if only briefly, that life is normal.
“I’m in dire need of a change,” she says. “I would love to be on a beach in Hawaii. But that’s not going to be an option, so what’s the next option that will make my brain think that I am in a normal state of life?”
On New Year’s Eve they may visit with family who have been in their bubble since the pandemic began, but it depends on what she learns about Omicron, Ms. Lee says.
Kelly Gaudreau, a personal support worker in long-term care, plans on having a small family gathering limited to 10 people for Christmas dinner at his home in Leamington, Ont.
“We used to have larger gatherings,” he says. Mr. Gaudreau and his wife also used to have people over to the house for a New Year’s party. They didn’t last year, and won’t again this year.
Christmas dinner, with everyone double-vaccinated, will be a welcome evening of close to normal life, Mr. Gaudreau says.
“That’s one thing I enjoy about having family over – family that you know are vaccinated – is that feeling of not thinking about the whole pandemic. I definitely want things to be back normal.”
He and his family were debating a trip to Cuba in February but decided against it because of the possibility of having to quarantine upon their return.
The emergence of the Omicron variant seems to have had a similarly chilling effect on many Canadians’ plans to travel this holiday season.
“Two or three weeks ago I would have said things are looking brighter,” says Richard Smart, president and chief executive officer of the Travel Industry Council of Ontario, a non-profit organization. “We’ve done consumer surveys and we know a high percentage of consumers were looking forward to travelling soon, and soon meaning over the holiday season, March break and over the summer.”
But now, uncertainty means many people are second-guessing their travels plans, Mr. Smart says.
“The brakes have kind of been put on in the last couple of weeks. Nobody really knows what to think about Omicron.”
Anyone considering booking a trip should read the fine print carefully and make sure to get travel insurance, including trip cancellation, trip interruption and out of province medical insurance, Mr. Smart says. “Travel insurance is critical.”
Ms. Laumbach has double-checked her travel insurance, particularly because she is losing faith that the vacation to Punta Cana will happen given the emergence of Omicron.
“I’m not getting my hopes up for this trip because I don’t have the confidence that things aren’t going to go south quickly again,” she says.
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