The debate about how to celebrate pandemic Christmas it is everywhere. What is the priority, minimizing social contact or seeking warmth from loved ones at the end of this difficult year? Physician and researcher from the University of Leicester Salvador Macip and the UOC professor of psychology and director of the Public Emotional Culture project Mireia Cabero They approach the debate from two perspectives that are not necessarily opposite: health and emotional.
“We must make the ultimate sacrifice”
Doctor and researcher
– Tell me, how do you think we should behave this Christmas?
– I think the message should be that everyone celebrates Christmas with the people they live with, because that’s the only way to not take any chances. We all know that the most risky situation is: a closed room, without ventilation and a large number of people for many hours without a distance or a mask. Just what a Christmas meal is.
-So, is the wrong message being passed on to people?
-The message being given is that with some tweaks we can make a more or less normal Christmas, and yes this is very dangerous. We’ve already seen what happened in the summer, and if we have a normal Christmas, the same will happen. The infections will increase, and the more infections there are, the more deaths there will be. It would be a shame. Now that we’re in the last piece, the vaccination is about to begin. Little is left, very little.
-Summer is the mirror we have to look at, right?
-Yes, we are in a situation very similar to the one we live in after the summer, worse because in the summer the numbers were better after giving birth, and what happened then was people relaxed and things started do that assumed a risk, so the wave started to rise. And now we are in a similar situation.
-The emotional and psychological component. What do we say to those who put forward these arguments?
Psychological reality is very important, but we need to have some perspective. I think everyone should be responsible for the risk they want to take, bearing in mind that the only zero risk is not to celebrate outside the bubble. We must appeal to everyone’s responsibility to make the right decisions in accordance with reality, which is that the virus is circulating at levels that are not safe, whether we like it or not.
– It’s been a tough year. People need family, warmth from home …
– Look, you don’t have to tell me about the emotional importance of Christmas, I live abroad and I haven’t seen my parents since last Christmas, and I am very annoyed not to see them this Christmas. But for me it is more important to make the sacrifice, so as not to endanger my parents and to minimize the risk on a social level. Christmas is a day, and if you want to see your loved ones, do it, but in a safe environment. You can have a picnic, or take a walk, bundle up and go for a walk. I think there are solutions.
-Are we a children’s society that, in the light of the hecatomb we are going through, with thousands of deaths around us, we only think about celebrating?
-I didn’t mean to put it that way, but he puts it on a tray for me. It’s a good description. You need perspective: this is a lost Christmas, okay. It’s a major emotional impact, no doubt it shouldn’t be minimized, but it’s Christmas, we’re not talking about …
-A war?
– Exactly. I mean, my dad’s generation went through a war and a post-war era, so let’s put it in perspective for a moment: it’s not the end of the world if we skip Christmas. The sacrifice is worth it. I happily do it, even when it annoys me, to help save the few or many lives that we can save if we manage to prevent infections from increasing in January.
-What should the administrations do? Ban everything outside the bubble?
-I am against banning, I think banning has the opposite effect. It must be interpreted more than a prohibition. Do pedagogy, make sure people understand the risk and importance of personal and social responsibility that we all have In a democratic country like ours, this is not achieved with bans, but with politicians and scientists explaining reality in the media. And I repeat, reality is what it is.
– We were talking about the difference between a manageable third wave and a runaway wave, I think.
– Exactly. There will be a third wave, that’s almost certain, the question is how big it will be, and that depends a bit on us now. Most importantly, people realize that more cases mean more deaths. We must make the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that the maximum number of people overcomes this pandemic and that we will all be at the table by Christmas 2021.
“We need the warmth and security that the tribe gives us”
Professor of Psychology at the UOC and director of Public Emotional Culture
Tell me, what should this Christmas look like from a psychological point of view?
– Look, I get two adjectives: that it is a safe Christmas and a serene Christmas. And I’m not just talking about health security, I’m talking about psychological security. A little emotional stick and cool and positive emotions would go very well for us.
-Psychological security?
– Psychological safety, yes. It is the inner belief that we have tools to overcome setbacks, challenges and all that life has to offer.
-What would it mean in practice in the light of Christmas? The ideal is to find the heat of the home within the sanitary security?
-That would be great. We come from a time when a tribe lacks, the warmth that the tribe gives us, the certainty that the tribe gives us. The feeling of belonging and being loved, and this is not only communicated through words or non-verbal communication, it is communicated through the body, gestures, the warmth of contact.
– Would strict confinement at Christmas have a huge psychological impact?
-I think there’s a percentage of the population who would experience it as, well, added one more drop to the effort to maintain this lack of relationships for months. People with enough adaptability to say, I’m going to make them cool anyway, Christmas. But I also think there is a percentage of the population whose emotional stress would worsen.
– Could it be noticed? If we had a Christmas with strict measures, would that turn out?
-It would be noticed, yes, I think so. If the pandemic started it would make us less tired, but we are tired, I mean emotional, and of course in this fatigue there are indexes.
-What do you mean?
-Because in all of these groups of people who arrive with greater psychological vulnerability, less adaptability, or at a delicate vital moment, the pain is exponential. As you steal opportunities for contact and warmth, their pain increases exponentially.
-Tell me aside from the cultural, do you think in the urgency of seeing our loved ones the fear that one of them, or ourselves, will be taken away by the covid is mixed up?
-Surely. Many people are very clear that if they can see their parents today the better it is because the day after tomorrow there will be people who will stop because of this disease. And this generates significant psychological pressure because we don’t know how long we will resist as a living family.
-The covid confronts us with death.
-Yes, that’s something I’ve noticed as a psychologist, that death has been presented to us in a very egalitarian way, with the feeling that it could be tomorrow. This is something we rarely feel in life because we forget about reality very quickly. There is a constant mental and emotional buzz that reminds us that this is a very vulnerable time. I’ve heard it many times, “Let’s see if we can get together because next year we don’t know who will be there.” And not necessarily in families with older people, right?
There’s a lot of talk about balancing health and economics, but maybe there is a third leg to that balance that is psychological, right?
-One of the health aspects most affected during this pandemic is mental health. I recently read that in Japan, the number of suicides this year is greater than the number of people killed by the corona virus. The impact on mental health is very serious, and not only in people with severe imbalances, but also in people with a certain vulnerability or sensitivity.
It may interest you
– Didn’t it get the attention it deserves?
-I would say no. There is a very great imbalance between the efforts that are made against the virus and the care that is given to the inner life of people. I don’t want to say nothing is done because I am aware of actions, but they are not enough. It takes a lot to understand that we must promote emotional well-being. The psychological must be cared for in a massive way, and with the resources deployed now, it is not enough.