Doing the Complex Math Around Holiday Gatherings in the Age of Omicron

To gather or not gather that is the question

Photo by author, equations by her offspring

One planned family Christmas gathering, six fully vaxxed and boosted people, four households, four different flights, five airports, three countries who could change rules on us at any time. What are the odds we manage to gather for Christmas this year? What are the odds we all stay Covid free until we return to our separate homes on New Years Day?

Here I sit, two days before our holiday travel is scheduled to begin contemplating Schroedinger’s Christmas. Are our plans alive or dead? Don’t know. Can’t know. I have to prepare as if both things are true at once. Any one of the six of us could catch Covid at any point scuppering all plans.

Hurdle one is already cleared. The college student is home. There were some hairy moments when it looked like the PCR test results wouldn’t arrive in time for her flight. It was an anxious five-hour bus ride from campus to airport.

What if she got a positive result while on the bus? Ethically what do you do then? Get off at the next stop? How would we get a non-driving young adult back to her campus apartment hours away?

The only safe choice these days is to hunker down and never leave your home but even this option…