I'm spending Christmas in bed for the second year in a row.
After I wrote about my "isomas" last year, some readers compared it to a "John and Yoko Bed-in".
It's becoming tradition, but it's no protest — although right now, I'm tempted to stage one. Last Christmas, I was in bedroom jail as a close contact. This year, I have suspected COVID.
It might seem like a coincidence, but it's not — we all know the festive season is a cocktail of risk: increased mixing and travelling, plus staffing shortages making it harder to be tested or treated quickly.
This isn't even my first brush with COVID this month.
Two weeks ago, I went to a friend's apartment to celebrate their 30th birthday — the first 30th in my friend group that wasn't cancelled by COVID.
Soon after, we were locked in our bedrooms as close contacts for a week.
I emerged from my mini-lockdown drained and ready to enjoy the outside world. Within 24 hours, I seem to have contracted coronavirus.
In a cruel twist, my symptoms began on the day I was booked in for my booster shot. It began with a scratchy throat so mild that many would've missed it. I was on high alert from my week in iso, so I went straight to get tested.
Loading...Testing times begin
I live in the middle of Sydney, yet the nearest clinic is still a 20-minute drive away, adding 40 minutes to the average two-hour wait in the queue. I had to do this three-hour round trip twice in one week as a close contact: If I didn't have a flexible job, I don't know how I could've managed it.
Two years into the pandemic, we're still not triaging people in these queues — close contacts, symptomatic, or surveillance testing only — despite the 10 staff in high-vis supervising.
This time, turning up for my third three-hour ordeal, I was told the drive-through was closed due to "too much demand".
Some 55 hours later, I'm still waiting on my results, but with my significant symptoms, positive rapid antigen tests and positive PCR results from a slew of people I've seen, it's not looking promising.
It's hard to imagine insecure workers being able to afford to isolate for days on end — although there is a payment available in some situations (offline for maintenance next week, in a Utopia-esque twist).
Then, there's the fallout for interstate travellers, like my mother's partner, who was turned away at the airport from his flight to Queensland to see his family, as his results had not arrived in time.
Today, instead of resting with my symptoms, I've spent six hours on the phone trying to find someone to swab my elderly grandparents who I may have given the virus to. They're unable to travel to a clinic and everyone in my family is quarantined and likely has COVID too.
Scaling up testing to meet demand is clearly not simple, but the limits should've been better anticipated and stronger infection-control measures retained.
As an exceptionally contagious variant landed, why was the response to abandon public health measures, especially those that pose no cost to the economy, like mask wearing and QR codes?
I know that some view wearing a mask as an assault on their liberty, but spending my holidays in quarantine feels more constrictive.
In an attempt to protect my household, I'm now sleeping in a P2 mask for 10 days. If I had to choose, I'd take wearing it at the supermarket instead.
Christmas is cancelled
It feels like Groundhog Day watching the same pattern as the Northern Beaches outbreak last December play out across Sydney.
Dropping public health measures in the pursuit of normality, we've ended up with something so very far from normal.
Thousands will spend Christmas in bed with COVID, with thousands more in isolation, and even more too worried to see their older relatives. For so many of my friends, and both sides of my family, Christmas is, quite literally, cancelled.
So many of the venues, events and businesses the government were trying to boost are instead empty. There's fear in the air that wasn't there just weeks ago and it turns out that's bad for business too.
Of course we need to live with COVID, but the cost of transitioning overnight was laid bare to me when we attempted to take a relative to the emergency department earlier this week.
There was a five-hour wait to be seen, and no beds, so they were sent home.
I never expected we'd need an emergency department this Christmas, but that's their defining feature — you need them when you don't expect it.
The primary care system is similarly overwhelmed. After a Herculean attempt to book an appointment on Christmas Eve, I registered the onset of my symptoms with a GP.
I did this because, in NSW at least, a GP can clear you to leave quarantine 10 days after your symptoms begin. It was the first the GP had heard of the process, which is little surprise since it was apparently sprung on doctors without warning at a time when many were already shutting up shop.
Loading...Vaccination makes a difference
This time last year, I was terrified of passing on the virus to the people I loved with potentially catastrophic consequences.
This year, I feel relieved that we are vaccinated, offering at least some protection.
COVID is not the flu — but with vaccination, it feels more like one.
A friend whose father recently spent a week on life support with COVID has gifted my family an oxygen meter — it saved his dad's life, telling them to call an ambulance even though he thought he was fine.
I hopefully won't need it, but they're readily available at chemists and a handy thing for every living-with-COVID home.
It turns out I'm absolutely saturated with oxygen, a hidden talent that will sadly hold no clout on my resume.
Merry COVID Christmas
There are other things I'm grateful for, too: that this illness will be fleeting (I hope). If you include my first round of isolation, I'll have quarantined for 17 days this summer. So many Australians with chronic illnesses never get to leave "bedroom jail".
After my last Christmas Bed-in, I was heartbroken to receive so many emails from others spending Christmas alone, not just because of COVID.
The pandemic has brought home how isolation truly feels, and I hope it leaves us resolved to reach out to those who live this daily.
So yes, this year I've swapped my champagne for a cocktail of Panadol and Nurofen.
Instead of pulling Christmas crackers I'm clipping the oxygen meter to my finger.
It's no celebration, but I'm raising a silent toast to all those in "isomas", and the rest of you, on this merry COVID Christmas.
Loading...Loading...