[ad_1]
The experts: how to have a Christmas without a crown
Published:
Updated:
Do you want to celebrate Christmas Eve with the whole family, young and old together?
Then everyone who is to meet must be quarantined for a week, Agnes Wold believes.
Here are the top three expert tips for a wreathless Christmas.
All kind children, parents and elderly who want to pat together on December 24 must first be quarantined. In any case, Agnes Wold, a professor of clinical bacteriology at the University of Gothenburg, thinks so.
– Yesterday (read: Monday) a thousand people were in the hospital with covid-19. If there are 2000 in a couple of weeks, we will be at the same level as in the spring, many more cannot be handled by medical care. The dangerous thing is above all to mix the generations. All people over the age of 70 are at a much higher risk of serious and life-threatening illness – they have a 100 times greater risk of dying in corona than people in their 30s. Those who are currently spreading the infection are the young, he says and continues:
– A classic Swedish Christmas across generational borders is dangerous from an infection control point of view, in general, although of course in the individual case the risk may be only one in a thousand, that this particular nephew must be infected.
His advice is very clear to all traditional Christmas Eve celebrators.
Photo: Adam Ihse / TT
Professor Agnes Wold.
The number doesn’t matter
– If you absolutely want one with the older generation and the younger generation, you have to make sure that everyone who is going to celebrate together is quarantined for at least a week, so they don’t get infected, says Wold.
She believes that the number of people who meet on Christmas Eve does not matter, it can be 20 or more. The important thing is that no one is infected with corona.
– If everyone is 65 or older, the risk is extremely small, they live adequately, and they are not normally infected. The problem is the young people who study, the teenagers in high school and their parents, the young adults in their 30s who celebrate, they are the great risk of infection, says Agnes Wold.
You don’t see buying Christmas gifts as a major problem.
– It shouldn’t be crowded in stores, but it is probably less dangerous to shop than to sit at home with a 25-year-old at a Christmas table. Because he’s in contact for a much shorter time, he’s not that close on a deal after all. By the way, we don’t need so much material, you can wait until next year.
Christmas table with work, on the other hand, makes Wold approve. When it comes to traveling to other parts of the country, she doesn’t see any major problems with it, as long as you are not infected.
– There may be congestion on the trains, but I still don’t think there is any major infection hazard there. However, you should not drive a car over 70, cars have a very small volume of air that only travels through there. You should not pick up Grandma and take her for an hour. Then grandma had better take the train.
Unable to plan
Jan Albert, a professor of infection control at Karolinska Institutet, believes that it is not really possible to plan for Christmas, as the infection now changes week after week.
– The simple answer is that you can’t plan Christmas, because we don’t know what it will be like then. It must be taken into account that there will be the same type of restrictions as today, that social contacts must be kept to a minimum.
She advocates for Christmas shopping online and thinks everyone should think about whether they have to dine at a restaurant this year. You can travel across the country, but preferably in your own car, according to Albert.
– The journey itself can be a problem if you are not traveling in your own car. But if you’re traveling in your own car, don’t gather much together and make sure everyone is healthy, it should be possible to see them in smaller groups on Christmas Eve.
What does small business mean?
– If you start to exceed eight, ten people, it is no longer little.
Wait until the longest
Niklas Arnberg, a professor of virology at Umeå University, is the most restrictive of the three experts Aftonbladet spoke to. At the same time, it emphasizes that the situation can change.
– A recommendation would probably be to wait as long as possible to plan Christmas, until you know how the situation is at that moment.
But based on the current situation, he says:
– I’ll probably stay in my hometown. Possibly I’ll stand on my mother’s ladder and wave at a great distance. It is at that level.
He definitely does not intend to travel to Stockholm with his brother.
– It is to minimize the risk of infection for my own good, but also to minimize the risk that I carry the infection from one place to another.
When it comes to Christmas shopping, she has some good advice.
– Try to find moments when there are not so many others out there. Don’t wait until the last second, then many tend to go out Christmas shopping.
Photo: Janerik Henrsson / TT
Professor Jan Albert.
Photo: Alexandra Bengtsson / SvD
Professor Niklas Arnberg.
PODD What about the corona test?
Aftonbladet Daily talks to Lena Mellin about how coronavirus testing is handled in Sweden.
Listens: ► iPhone ► A cast ► Spotify
Or ⬇️ Click the Listen button
Published:
