Quebec will allow gatherings of a maximum of 20 people vaccinated during the holiday season. How to feast without putting yourself in danger? “Le Devoir” asked six experts to comment. Here are their recommendations, collected by Marie-Eve Cousineau.
Small parties at 10
Yes, Quebec authorizes gatherings of 20 vaccinated people. But nothing obliges Quebecers to meet in such large numbers, underlined the Dr Horacio Arruda, national director of public health for Quebec, during the press briefing on Tuesday.
Nathalie Grandvaux, director of the CHUM’s research laboratory on the host’s response to viral infections, agrees. She recommends limiting the number of guests during the festivities. “It’s better to have several small groups than a big gathering because you can keep a bit of distance,” she says. Organizing a meal with 20 people, we are necessarily all stuck in a small dining room, all together, at one point. ”Unless, of course, we live in a“ very, very big house ”.
Epidemiologist Nimâ Machouf also advises families to choose the largest possible place to hold their gatherings. Aunt Linda may have been organizing the traditional Christmas dinner for ages, it is better to move the turkey to Uncle Serge’s if he has a bigger house. “No need for everyone to be seated at the same table to eat,” adds the lecturer at the University of Montreal, a member of the COVID-Stop group, who is preparing a guide for a safe Christmas. Some sit down at the table, on chairs, a little scattered around, on armchairs. “
Some gatherings may also be held outdoors, which decreases the risk of transmission of COVID-19.
Immunization status
The police will not burst into the holidays to find out if those aged 12 and over are adequately vaccinated, assures Quebec. But hosts can ask their guests if they have received their vaccine doses, according to the experts consulted.
Roxane Borgès Da Silva, professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Montreal, believes that this issue must be put on the table from the time of the invitations. “We have to discuss it, but not in an abrupt and accusatory way,” she thinks. The unvaccinated have their reasons – valid or not – for refusing the vaccine against COVID-19, she recalls. “We have to explain to them that it is to protect them that we recommend that they do not show up at gatherings,” she continues. They are really at risk with the Delta variant of developing severe symptoms and being hospitalized. Nobody wants to go through this. “
Symptoms?
The Dr Karl Weiss, president of the Association des médecins microbiologistes infectiologues du Québec, pleads “common sense”. “I understand that people are tempted, but someone who says’ it’s okay, I cough a little, I blow a little, I have a headache and I’m a little feverish, but I am correct, ”that’s not a good idea,” he said. In this context, we must stay at home, he points out.
Nathalie Grandvaux recommends canceling our participation “if we have the slightest symptom, whether because of COVID-19, the flu, RSV [virus respiratoire syncytial] or something else ”. “We monitor his symptoms and we postpone his Christmas meal,” she says.
A self-test
It is not yet clear whether the entire population will have access, free of charge, to rapid screening tests by Christmas. The Quebec government says it has sent some to daycare services, which will soon be handing them over to parents. Elementary schools could also distribute them to families if Quebec receives the 10 million tests ordered from Ottawa.
If they have it at their disposal, Quebecers have every interest in using rapid tests, says Dr.r André Veillette, doctor and immunologist at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute. “Ideally, people should have taken a test on the same day [que le rassemblement] », He affirms. This is all the more important for children under 12, unvaccinated or partially immunized, who currently represent “major vectors” of the disease, he points out.
Ventilate the room
The Dr André Veillette recommends “opening the windows once in a while, even if it means wearing a slightly warmer sweater”. “We know that the virus is transmitted by aerosols and that aerosols can remain suspended in the air for a long time. So the idea is to circulate the air, ”he explains. People who own high efficiency airborne particle (HEPA) air purifiers should use them, he said. The bathroom fan and the kitchen hood should also remain on, according to Nimâ Machouf.
Hugs or not?
“It’s going to take a little!” »Laughs Nathalie Grandvaux. After nearly two years of the pandemic, people need to find each other and hug each other, she said. Grandparents, who feel vulnerable, can take their grandchildren if everyone wears a mask.
Public health also recommends wearing a mask during close contact during Christmas gatherings.
Songs to answer
Bad idea, unless you are “sure that people are not infected and that they do not frequent high-risk environments”, responds Nimâ Machouf. “If there are people in the group at risk, because they go to daycare or to school, because they went to four parties and in the bars, those, that they do not sing. The choir suddenly shrinks …
The DD Catherine Hankins, a professor at McGill University and co-chair of the COVID-19 Immunity Working Group, suggests singers move away from others and that seniors 70 and older wear masks while singers others push the note.
Sanitary label
We continue to wash our hands regularly, as we have been doing since the start of the pandemic. We cough in the elbow.
A runny nose?
On Christmas Day, the youngest’s nose is runny. The rapid test – assuming you have one – is negative. Are we participating or not in the family Christmas party?
“When the test is negative, it greatly reduces the chances that it is COVID, but it does not eliminate [entièrement le risque] », Answers the DD Hankins. The participants in the gathering are therefore faced with a choice: they welcome the child and wear the mask (except at mealtime) or refuse the child to be present, given the circumstances.
“It’s a judgment that every family has to make,” says DD Hankins. We must think of the most vulnerable: the elderly, the immunosuppressed, pregnant women. It depends on the mix of people that is at the party. “
What about the unvaccinated?
They could do quarantine before participating in a rally, according to Nathalie Grandvaux. “In this case, the person is unvaccinated, but they will not pose a risk,” she says. As for unvaccinated people who telework and leave their homes very little, they “are potentially very little at risk of infecting someone,” she said. “It’s a global assessment,” she says.
Nimâ Machouf, she recommends to the hosts not to invite unvaccinated people who, for example, have already gone to three parties. She points out that those who have chosen not to become immune to COVID-19 also have a “responsibility to protect others.”