{"id":1972,"date":"2022-12-23T09:07:42","date_gmt":"2022-12-22T20:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=1972"},"modified":"2022-12-23T09:07:42","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T20:07:42","slug":"thousands-to-miss-christmas-thanks-to-covid-19-how-to-avoid-making-it-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=1972","title":{"rendered":"Thousands to miss Christmas thanks to Covid-19 &#8211; how to avoid making it worse"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"c-sub-nav c-sub-nav--inline \"><\/div>\n<div class=\"content__primary u-divider-bottom@until-medium\">\n<div class=\"article article-news article-news-481308\">\n<header class=\"article__header c-story-header\">\n<div class=\"c-story-header__meta\">\n<div class=\"c-social\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n<nav class=\"c-social__menu\">\n<div class=\"c-social__buttons\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/rnz-ressh.cloudinary.com\/image\/upload\/s--iXChtpti--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/4LGD945_Covid_for_Christmas_jpg\" alt=\"A woman missing out on Christmas.\" width=\"1050\" height=\"656\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/nav>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article__body\">\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \">\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">About 85,000 Kiwis will be in isolation for Christmas.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0123RF<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Thousands of people will be cancelling their Christmas Day plans thanks to the invisible grinch, Covid-19.<\/p>\n<p>Leading epidemiologist Michael Baker estimates 85,000 people will be in isolation in three days&#8217; time.<\/p>\n<p>He says gathering outdoors or in well-ventilated spaces is key to limiting the Christmas spread of Covid &#8211; and testing beforehand.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No-one will thank you for turning up and infecting other people, particularly if there are vulnerable people there. This is a time to be responsible and test if you have got symptoms, and then act accordingly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/political\/481235\/covid-19-jacinda-ardern-defends-settings-amid-wave-of-reported-cases\">Covid-19: Jacinda Ardern defends settings amid wave of reported cases<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Crunching the numbers, Baker said we could expect about 12,000 new infections on Christmas Day, based on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/in-depth\/450874\/covid-19-data-visualisations-nz-in-numbers\">daily average of reported cases<\/a>, plus the same number again of unreported ones.<\/p>\n<p>Covid Modelling Aotearoa programme co-leader Dion O&#8217;Neale agreed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re sitting at the peak of a relatively decent-sized wave at the moment, so definitely lots of people will end up missing Christmas because they&#8217;re a confirmed case and will have to isolate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He expected reported case numbers to decrease, but reminded people\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/covid-19\/481152\/covid-19-experts-share-simple-steps-to-socialise-safely-during-the-holidays\">not to rely on that as a signal the wave is over<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They just don&#8217;t report a case when they&#8217;re having a fun time, that&#8217;s almost certainly happened this week with schools knocking off and a bunch of people leaving work.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>&#8216;We have had to actually cancel Christmas&#8217;<\/h3>\n<p>One Auckland man, who wished to remain anonymous, said Covid had slipped through the chimney at his house &#8211; he had two family members who tested positive this week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sadly we have had to actually cancel Christmas. We had been really looking forward to getting together with my sister and her kids for a big family get-together\u2026 and I had to phone her yesterday and say, &#8216;Look, I&#8217;m really sorry we can&#8217;t do it, it&#8217;s all off&#8217;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>They would take Christmas Day as it came and delay their family gathering.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re just going to have to try and make it as nice as we possibly can, depending how people are feeling. It could be that some people are feeling unwell.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Auckland woman Melanie Bruges will get out of isolation in time to celebrate Christmas Day with family.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re having family over on Christmas Day on Sunday, so I&#8217;m going to keep a really low-profile until then. We&#8217;ll probably test on Christmas Day before everybody comes over.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If her husband or their seven-year-old tested positive, they would postpone.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve got five grandparents around for Christmas Day and we wouldn&#8217;t want them to be exposed to anything just for the sake of a meal. We can always put it off.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Free biscuit not worth the risk<\/h3>\n<p>For the thousands who were flying to their Christmas Day destination, O&#8217;Neale said it paid to be cautious and mask-up.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Is it really diminishing your travel experience if you don&#8217;t get your free glass of water and a dry biscuit on the plane? Would you rather have a dry biscuit or Covid?&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/rnz-ressh.cloudinary.com\/image\/upload\/s--b23v_hGA--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/4M7NADK_image_crop_126097\" alt=\"No caption\" width=\"1050\" height=\"590\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">Michael Baker.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>He and Baker did not want the grinch to steal Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s absolutely essential for your health, wellbeing and enjoyment of life to get out and reconnect with your family and friends and have an enjoyable summer, that is so important,&#8221; Baker said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Covid should not get in your way at all, and it&#8217;s a matter of making small changes in how you do things just to make it a lot safer for everyone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Source &#8211; RNZ<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About 85,000 Kiwis will be in isolation for Christmas.\u00a0Photo:\u00a0123RF Thousands of people will be cancelling their Christmas Day plans thanks to the invisible grinch, Covid-19. Leading epidemiologist Michael Baker estimates 85,000 people will be in isolation in three days&#8217; time. He says gathering outdoors or in well-ventilated spaces is key to limiting the Christmas spread [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid-19","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1973,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1972\/revisions\/1973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}