Another COVID Christmas brings anxiety, but also optimism
Associated PressChristmas arrived around the world Saturday amid a surge in COVID-19 infections that kept many families apart, overwhelmed hospitals and curbed religious observances as the pandemic was poised to stretch into a third year. Alex Karloutsos, of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary Church of the Hamptons in Southampton, New York, said attendance at the Christmas Eve liturgy was a third less than last year’s, with “the reality of the omicron virus diminishing the crowd, but not the fervor of the faithful present.” St. Patrick’s Church in Hubbard, Ohio, held Mass on Christmas Eve in a nearby high school because of a church fire this year. “This year, especially, I understand why.’’ Thousands of people across Britain got a vaccine booster shot for Christmas as new cases hit another daily record of 122,186. “We’re sick of this,” said Dr. Julien Carvelli, the ICU chief at La Timone Hospital, as his team spent another Christmas Eve tending to COVID-19 patients on breathing machines. He was happy many Filipinos could celebrate Christmas more safely after COVID-19 cases dropped, but he pleaded: “Please don’t forget us.” At least one American Christmas tradition was revived after the pandemic drove it online last year: the annual reenactment of George Washington’s daring crossing of the Delaware River in 1776.