Keep Calm and Party On
As a Transportation Security Administration officer in San Juan, Angela Ochoa, 53, knows the risk. But in the middle of October, she went on a four-day cruise from Los Angeles to Ensenada, Mexico, where she spent her nights dancing to cover bands in the theater. During the day, she exercised in the gym and shopped in crowded ports.
She recently caught Covid but doesn’t regret any decisions. “I knew I would get Covid sooner or later because everybody gets it,” she said. “Now that I got it I am like, OK, I don’t have extreme symptoms because I am vaccinated. I feel better about doing all these things, including going on a cruise again.”
Patrick Pho, 39, who works in marketing and lives in Arlington, Va., understands he may get sick this holiday season. “December always feels like the perfect storm,” he said. “Besides the expected holiday parties thrown by friends, my birthday falls around a week before Christmas.”
He attended three holiday parties and threw himself a birthday party, a happy hour at a bar in Washington, D.C. “I am aware of the higher chances of getting sick at this time of year,” he said. And he feels protected: “I got the latest bivalent Covid vaccine,” he said, adding that he also got a flu shot.
An All-Too-Familiar Stress for Parents
Jessy Roos, 36, is a mother of four, ages 8 to 18 months, who owns a therapy practice in Calgary, Alberta. She has been shocked by how many children have gotten sick this season.
“I have two friends with small children hospitalized right now with pneumonia,” she said. For the past two weeks, her children have been passing a flulike virus from one sibling to the others.
