Róisín Ingle: We’re all riddled with Covid, but will my unvaccinated relative catch it?

While I sit here in bed riddled with the Omicron variant waiting for news of my unvaccinated relative’s PCR test result, let me tell you about our Christmas. Like many of you we spent the season treasuring old traditions and creating some interesting new ones. The new ones included sticking extra-long cotton buds up our noses whenever we wanted to leave the house and carefully policing any mention of the C, the P or the V words.

Regular readers will recall that when my unvaccinated relative, who has strong opinions on the pandemic and vaccines, came to stay we banned any Covid-related chat, hoping this would ensure calm at this time of peace and goodwill. The system worked well enough most of the time. By Christmas Eve when we went for make-up pints outside Bruxelles, the unvaccinated relative and I had roared our way through three significant pandemic-adjacent arguments.

One of those resulted in my unvaccinated relative standing in my bedroom yelling, “Why did you INVITE me here then?” to which I screamed back truthfully, “I didn’t invite you. You INVITED yourself.” A memorable Christmas by anyone’s standards, it has to be said.

Things got even more interesting last week. On experiencing various cold-like symptoms, our household decided to do some more festive antigen tests. The swab had barely hit the back of my nasal cavity before the old double lines showed up on the Riddled-ometer with everyone else also getting positive tests. The two lines on the test meant all banning of words went out the window. The chatter in our house was suddenly all about Omicron symptoms and boosters and isolation and PCR tests. My unvaccinated relative, the only one without any symptoms and a negative antigen test, observed all of this unfolding with a satisfied grin.

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“But I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about Covid?” smiled my unvaccinated relative like the unvaccinated cat who had just got the cream.

"And also, isn't it ironic that the only person not riddled in this house is the unvaccinated relative? Put that in your column why don't you?"

The next day my unvaccinated relative left the house of the plague on a short trip to see friends in London. And yes, I know as a close contact of ours the unvaccinated relative should not have been off gallivanting across the water but my unvaccinated relative lives by different rules. Also, while I love them dearly, I am not my unvaccinated relative’s keeper.

With our houseguest away, we settled into our Omicron isolation. This involved a lot of lying on couches expanding my daughter’s cinematic education with movies such as The Truman Show while asking each other how we were feeling. Scratchy throat? Yeah, a really dry one. Headache? Yeah, permanently. Tired? Zonked and taking plenty of naps. Our experience was that Omicron was like a cold but a mild cold and less annoying because there were no runny noses.

We watched Don’t Look Up and controversially thought it was perfectly fine. We played Wordle and wondered what the fuss was about. We surveyed the fridge contents and realised, thanks to the surplus Christmas food, we had a few days before we’d have to replenish supplies. When that day came we were gifted a bag of groceries including a fancy roulade from one sister. Another day, a different sister sent a big box of doughnuts. We played cards and board games and I taught myself how to play the piano, or at least enough basic chords to tackle most of Taylor Swift’s back catalogue. And a small bit of Paul McCartney’s.

On day five, with most of my other symptoms gone, I woke to discover my sense of taste and smell had vanished. This new development provided a diverting morning’s entertainment while my children blindfolded me and fed me various strong-tasting foods to test my faulty tastebuds.

A generous spoon of the hottest hot sauce we have in the house (it’s called Scarlet For Yer Ma and I highly recommend it) tasted exactly like nothing. Balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard and fish sauce had a similarly vacant flavour. “Is it water?” I asked as they plied me with a tablespoon of what they claimed was freshly squeezed lemon juice. The New Year’s Eve champagne tasted like Ballygowan but it still did the required job.

On day six after being referred by my GP, we finally got an appointment for a PCR test. It was given to us by a kind woman called Dee in DCU who had “Happy New Year” scrawled in marker on her protective gear. Interestingly, given all the talk about changing the 10-day isolation to five days, our PCRs came back positive on day seven. As I write this we are all still very much riddled and consoling ourselves with the thought of all those lovely antibodies we are producing.

At times during the days and nights of confinement I’ve wondered: is this it? Is this the real beginning of the end? Will hundreds and thousands of us getting riddled and hopefully acquiring some natural immunity come to be seen as a turning point in this 22-month ordeal? Should we now, finally, be putting the majority of energy and resources into properly future-proofing our health service and into measures designed to protect the really vulnerable from infection? Should all restrictions be lifted in an effort to salvage people’s creaking mental health, give younger people their lives back, restore people’s decimated livelihoods? How much more of it can be justified? How much more of it can people take?

And what of my unvaccinated relative? Well, they just called from London with the result of the PCR test. Turns out my unvaccinated relative is riddled like the rest of us. And I would tell you if that news left a bitter or sweet taste in my mouth if it weren’t for the fact that my tastebuds are still very much banjaxed.

roisin@irishtimes.com