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We must keep the welfare of others in mind when we are making our daily decisions to take the gift wrap off 2022, I hope that your new year is still shiny and bright and that you have not lost the instruction manual.
AS WE CONTINUE
By Roy Strasburger, CEO, StrasGlobal
Like many, my family ended up experiencing a COVID Christmas at the end of 2021. Three of my four daughters traveled to Austin, Texas, to join us for the holiday celebrations. One came from the UK, one from Washington, D.C., and one, with her boyfriend, drove down from Denver. My fourth daughter and her boyfriend were already with us. We planned, and were looking forward to, a family Christmas — all gathered around the table sharing stories and experiences. Because of the spike in the omicron variant during the runup to Christmas, our kids had decided to quarantine, separately, for three days before they arrived at our house. Throughout the pandemic, our household has done its best to observe the rules and guidelines issued by the CDC to avoid being infected with COVID — and so far, we have been fortunate not to have had it. We’ve been careful because we don’t want to get sick, we don’t know how
20 Convenience Store News C S N E W S . c o m
having COVID will affect us, and frankly from a work point of view, we can’t afford to be out of commission for two or more weeks. In addition, we don’t want to spread it to our friends, family or any strangers we have been around. Our concern is not just about us, but the impact on others that we might unknowingly affect. At the end of the Christmas quarantine periods, each of my kids took a PCR or home test to make sure they did not have COVID. My wife and I took one, too. Three of the four visitors tested negative. My daughter’s boyfriend — the one coming from Colorado — tested positive. That meant the two of them would not be able to spend Christmas with us. Obviously, this was very disappointing and put our family plans into disarray. The positive test also set off several rounds of discussion amongst the rest of us as to what we were going to do. Did we really need to enforce the isolation, especially considering the boyfriend’s symptoms were negligible and omicron is not as dangerous as other variants? Would it be OK for us to get together if we were socially distanced and wearing
