Ho, ho — oh, no
Man dressed as Saint Nick spreads much more than good cheer
We have officially reached the stage of COVID-19 truth being stranger than fiction.
I supposed we were always nearing that point, with the huge number of cases worldwide meaning that there was a near-infinite number of possibilities of twists and turns and coincidences. Those possibilities then necessarily cascade through the realm of possibility and into actual experience.
In mid-November, Belgium’s health minister, Frank Vandenbrouke, and Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden were reported to have sent a joint letter to Saint Nicholas, telling the jolly old soul that he wouldn’t have to abide by the country’s quarantine rules because doing so might interfere with his ability to deliver gifts.
“Dear Saint, do what you do best: make every child happy. We are counting on you … always respect distancing, wash hands regularly, and wear a face mask,” the letter said.
It’s the kind of feel-good message that crops up at this time of year, like the annual news releases from places like NORAD, talking about tracking Santa’s sleigh on early-warning defence radar systems, but, of course with a pandemic twist.
But if Belgium’s free-travel pass for Santa was the shot, here’s the chaser.
This week, there’s a brand new Santa Claus story in Belgium: in an effort to lift spirits in a personal care home in the Belgian town of Mol, the administration brought in a man dressed as Saint Nick to spread Christmas cheer among the residents.
He spread much, much more than that. It turned out that the holiday guest was infected, a COVID-19 super-spreader, asymptomatic at the time of his visit, and, as a result, 75 people, including both residents and staff, have now tested positive for the virus.
“It was made with the best intent, but it went wrong. It has been a very dark day for the care home. It is a very great mental strain to bear for the man that played Saint Nicholas, as well as for the organizers and the staff,” Mol’s mayor, Wim Caeyers, was quoted as telling the Belgian news organization VRT News.
The visiting Saint Nicholas wore a mask and was supposed to have personally distanced, and, initially, the care home told investigators that residents had been masked, too.
“Initially they said that the rules had been followed, but then straight away you receive photos from the families of residents where you can see that this wasn’t the case,” Caeyers said.
So, you have a cautionary tale of best intentions, incomplete precautions and, for one visiting Saint Nicholas trying to do a good thing for residents in long-term care, a potentially crushing burden that he’s unlikely to ever forget.
Reality is unremitting. You could not have written a convincing short story along those lines, even if it does somewhat echo Edgar Allan Poe’s Masque of the Red Death.
Nor could you write convincingly of longtime married couples dying both separate from each other and moments apart — as has been reported several times in the United States — or any of the other varied and heartbreaking tragedies that COVID-19 has brought.
More than anything else, though, it shows that good intentions and the best of motives don’t trump the simplest of health-care messages we should be following this Christmas season, whether or not we think we’ve been exposed to COVID — taking every precaution may mean sacrificing traditions we know and love, family and Christmas gatherings among them.
This is likely to be a Christmas season unlike almost any other — do everything you can to ensure that it doesn’t become a Christmas season your conscience can never let you forget.