INMYVIEW... Covid’salot worsethanaquietXmas

TEN months into this pandemic, we all feel the tension between the need to wear masks and avoid unnecessary activities and contact, and the pure human, psychological need for a break from all these rules.

Yet relaxing the guidance to allow many families to spend Christmas Day together is not just a small increase in risk, it’s the prescription for a surge of infections and deaths.

It will be a perfect storm, with younger people — who tend to be asymptomatic when they have Covid — coming together in family groups with the most vulnerable. There will be hugs and, inevitably, skin-to-skin contact.

When HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — first appeared, one of the great fears was that infection could be transmitted by blood transfusions, although it was known to be a sexually transmitted disease.

This meant that if a patient needed major surgery, relatives would volunteer to be blood donors. However, research later showed that this made infection with HIV more likely, as relatives were less likely to admit what they had been up to. Even within families, privacy is paramount.

Similarly, when it comes to families gathering for Christmas, we naturally assume those close to us are less likely to transmit Covid. This, along with our tendency to engage in physical contact with our loved ones, is why a flare-up in infections will follow Christmas.

The only chance of limiting this is to make family events smaller and shorter, which is why I believe that the new rule that households outside Tier Four can only meet up on Christmas Day itself is appropriate.

Having several meetings over several days, as was originally allowed, would have been madness, though I still think the number of households who can meet should be limited to two, not three.

Although I live in Tier Two, I will not be attending any family gathering — missing my mother, siblings and adult children — and will instead spend the time with my own household. Less is more for Christmas 2020.