The Spectre of Omicron

Blogmas Day 13.

Let me get all the disclaimers out of the way before I start my rant:

1. I’m not a Covid-19 denier. It’s real.
2. I’m not an anti-vaxxer. I believe vaccines are important.
3. I have no medical or public health qualifications whatsoever.
4. I’m incredibly biased on this subject as it now pertains very strongly to ME and my wellbeing.
5. Due to the disclaimer above, I’m not keenly following the news as it scares me and I prefer to adopt the ‘head in the sand’ approach to protect the fragility of my hopes and dreams. In other words, I’m ill-informed and ignorant.

That’ll do.

These coronavirus restrictions are STUPID and should end IMMEDIATELY.

I wanna go on holiday.

Me and the UK contingent of my family booked a trip in early February 2020 to spend Christmas in the Caribbean as a complete family unit in the December.

We all know what happened a little over a month later.

Obviously, the whole world closed and focus changed. For the next few moths we didn’t think about going away on holiday. Heck, in the early days of the pandemic we didn’t even know if airlines and the travel industry would ever be the same again.

The summer came around and with that came renewed hope. “Wow, this has been such a difficult season. Thank God we’ve got a beautiful way to round off this challenging year!”. Lol.

As summer switched to autumn, infection rates rose and, once again, the plan to go away slipped through our fingers. I have no problem with that. Lives were being lost, the NHS was straining, the world was still being rocked. Let’s keep the main thing, the main thing.

Allow me a brief rant within a rant.

I interrupt this moan and whinge to say that Opodo travel agency is steaming heap of festering trash.* As the countries were closing their borders in the run up to Christmas 2020, our carrier didn’t cancel our flight which caused us to cancel the flight instead on the basis that the countries we were going to or passing through were illegal to travel to. Has Opodo taken that into account when trying to rebook? Or that fact that we booked before the pandemic so we couldn’t possibly foresee the outcome? Does it hell. It’s caused a whole heap of stress and we’re still fighting for a refund or rebooking but I’ll stop there. I don’t want to raise my blood pressure anymore.

“Back to our originally scheduled programming…”

Long story short. We booked to go again. When my sister said “Life’s too short” when we were waiting for a decision from Opodo, we unilaterally agreed. If the last couple of years haven’t taught us that we’ve learned nothing at all.

Problem is, I’m super stressed. I’ve had no problem following the protocols surrounding Covid-19 but knowing that your ability to travel is dependent on a negative PCR test is a whole different type of energy.

As much as I’ve found testing myself uncomfortable (I can gag if I brush my teeth too hard, let alone stick a swab down the back of my throat), I’ve been happy to comply as I recognise the necessity. Here in the UK, our vaccination rate is high and hospitalisations and deaths have been relatively low compared to earlier points during the pandemic – yay. But then Omicron shows itself and has got everybody shook. I’m currently the ‘shooketh’ of all.

Step Back from the Brink, Girl…

As I type, I feel reason descend upon me a little. The restrictions are not stupid, it’s just that I’m weary of it all. Surely, we just have to live with this now? Have we not moved from pandemic to endemic? The thought that trips, parties, gatherings and business ventures have to be cancelled, because for what for the vast majority of people will be flu symptoms – or no symptoms at all – seems insane.

I quickly refer back to disclaimers 3., 4., and 5.. This is a selfish rant from someone who is nervous and tired. Nobody knows the extent of the effects of the Omicron variant yet. In 6 months time I could be hailing all the experts for their caution and expediency in taking this all so seriously. I hope so. Anger and scepticism is exhausting.

At the end of the day, I just want to go on holiday.