Go or not go to company dinner: mass meetings are also a risk for vaccinations

Whether or not to attend the pre-Christmas dinners. This is the ultimate dilemma for many people who these days hold massive gatherings with friends and co-workers before going home to spend Christmas Eve. The spread of the virus in a celebration of toilets at the Malaga hospital – there are already at least 80 infected linked to the outbreak, all asymptomatic or mild – sends a warning to sailors, according to experts, which should be kept in mind in the coming weeks : social events are not without risk despite the fact that all attendees are vaccinated and that they have even previously carried out an antigen test, as they say happened in Malaga.

"The safest option is not to go and the next one is to go with all the precautions," summarizes Ildefonso Hernández, former Director General of Public Health of the Government and spokesman for the Spanish Society of Public Health (SESPAS), who recalls that the Indoors are an "ideal" environment for transmission "also for vaccinated" if they are not well ventilated, masks are dispensed with and the safety distance is forgotten. For María Urtasun, from the Madrid Public Health Association, it is more important to "assess whether they are going to maintain" the measures that we know protect us to make a decision rather than to refuse to attend any event "exhaustively".

Going to a place knowing in advance that it is safe is increasingly difficult, experts warn. Ventilation "fails systematically," Hernández points out, and it is difficult for someone in a bar – or even in a house – to ask that doors and windows be opened. Much more with the drop in temperatures, adds Urtasun. How is it explained? "Pandemic fatigue" enters the equation, which forces us to measure what efforts are required of a population conditioned for a year and a half -at different levels- by the coronavirus and also the mistake of thinking that vaccination alone is enough to control the pandemic.

The reduction in the risk of getting sick is demonstrated by the data –Health already separates infections and hospitalizations in vaccinated and unvaccinated–, but continuing to let the virus circulate has immediate consequences at the healthcare level, such as the saturation of Primary Care or of surveillance networks. In the case of Malaga, the sick leave of those infected have forced the hospital to hire relief workers. Euskadi, one of the communities with the worst epidemiological situation, has already announced the suspension of surgeries. The cumulative incidence in the community reaches 746 cases per 100,000 inhabitants at 14 days.

Before the outbreak among health workers was detected, which has reached the media, the Health Alerts and Emergencies Control Center (CCAES), under the Ministry of Health, had already recommended setting limits around the number of participants in social events "during the celebrations of the Christmas holidays" and even more so given the situation of uncertainty generated by omicron, the new variant of coronavirus that continues to spread throughout the world.

The advice, however, has not been openly passed down from all governments to citizens. A mistake, according to Hernández. "They must remember that recommendation without fuss, but informing. It is sound advice that I would not steal. Afterwards, each one make the decisions in their environment", assesses the SESPAS spokesman, guided by the maxim that "perseverance is a quality for success in public health.

The Government asks to "enjoy safely"

The government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, insisted this Tuesday during the press conference after the Council of Ministers that "we have learned that we can enjoy safely" . And she appealed to prevention "through individual behavior, in the most intimate and personal sphere, to celebrate the coming Christmas, very different from the previous ones." But the anxiety due to the increase in cases is leading some people to rethink company dinners or with friends these weeks.

The one that Juan José was going to attend, for example, who works in the energy sector in Madrid, has been suspended. "The official dinner, the one organized by the different departments, was canceled two weeks ago due to the rise in the incidence. We, the friends, are going to get together to have a dinner, but no one from the company knows that except the department," explains this thirty-something. Somehow, Juan José and his co-workers are going to apply the Health recommendation to limit the number of people who attend Christmas celebrations. They, for example, have gone from being about 30 to finally being 10.

Miguel was quite clear that he was going to attend the work party in Madrid as well, but now he has certain doubts. His company, related to advertising and technology, has between 100 and 150 workers, although he believes there will be many absences. "My company, which is more or less small, has organized a dinner in a closed place. I don't know how many people will go, I know that not everyone will go, but there will be quite a few of us." Miguel, who assumes that it will be difficult to maintain the minimum security measures at the event, has thought of calling the human resources department to find out if the company is considering changing it to an open space. "And if not, my solution is to go inside, have a drink and go back out. Spend a while, but most of the time outside with the smokers," he concludes.

At Vanesa's work they didn't even announce a company lunch this year. "We all thought we were going to have food this year," says this young woman who works in a marketing department, "but since they are very conservative, with COVID they haven't dared," she explains. Like Juan José, some teammates will have lunch and an afternoon of drinks in the center of Madrid almost two weeks before traveling to La Rioja to spend Christmas with the family. Many make accounts to carry out a self-confinement days before the indicated date, repeating the operation of last year.

The "false security" of antigen tests

Another of the lessons learned, in the absence of knowing more details, after the outbreak detected in Malaga is that antigen tests are not infallible and can generate, warn the experts, a feeling of "false security". The workers who participated in the meal had been tested before meeting, according to hospital union delegates, who insist it is not clear that the outbreak originated from that meal.

"If this happened like this, it puts us back in front of the fact that rapid tests are not a letter that gives you a free hand. They are more sensitive when there are symptoms. If there are not, it is more controversial," says Urtasun. Hernández recalls that "neither the COVID passport nor the test assure us of non-infection." "It cannot be used to think that the whole mountain is oregano, although we already know that it is uncomfortable not being able to hug or speak loudly in a celebration," he adds.

According to the latest report from the Carlos III Health Institute, 6.1% of the infections reported to the National Epidemiological Surveillance Network occurred in the "social environment" compared to 38.4% that occurred in homes . In the workplace, the percentage reaches 5%. "We load the inks on leisure and fun and we do not look so much at the conditions of other things. Ask people to stay at home and not go to dinner and at the same time tell them to go to work calmly without capacity restrictions or even without a mask does not make sense", comments the epidemiologist María Urtasun, who insists that the key for the population to follow the public health recommendations is to have a "coherent discourse". Also at Christmas.