Covid-safe New Year's Eve celebrations - are they possible?

Public celebrations of the New Year are being cancelled left, right and centre in the face of the ever-increasing number of people infected with the latest variant of the Covid-19 virus - the highly contagious Omicron. 

Of the ten most populous cities in Spain, only Madrid and Seville are going ahead with their planned New Year's Eve celebrations - the mass public gatherings to eat the traditional 12 grapes as the clock strikes the 12 'bongs' for midnight.

In contrast, nine autonomous communities have rushed through new restrictions like curfews, or the closing of restaurants and bars by midnight to try to stop the spread. For the second year running, it looks like the virus is going to change people's chariots back into pumpkins and have most of us scurrying for home by midnight.

However, if dancing the night away in a club is your favoured way of seeing in the New Year, you will still be able to do that in Madrid, the Valencian Community, Castilla & León, Extremadura or Castilla-La Mancha. Experts agree, however, that this is probably the "riskiest" way of waving goodbye to 2021 in terms of the likelihood of catching Covid from fellow revellers and recommend small get-togethers at home as the "safest" way of bringing in 2022.

Open-air parties are definitely safer than those in enclosed spaces, and if you are getting together with lots of people, if you can keep your mask on as much as possible and open doors and windows you will also give yourself the best chance of not starting the year infected with Covid and in isolation.

Young people, who just can't resist getting together with their friends, are being advised to stick to the same small group of friends all the time rather than meeting up with different groups on different nights. They are also being asked to be particularly alert to the onset of any kind of Covid-like symptoms, so that they can isolate in their own rooms as soon as possible and avoid infecting their families, especially the older members.

Not surprisingly, the highest incidence rate is among the young. With Spain registering its highest ever figure for "new cases" this Tuesday - almost 100,000 new positive diagnoses in one single day - people between the ages of 20 and 29 account for 2,258 cases in every 100,000 inhabitants. The next most infected group is the 30 to 39-year-olds, with 1,845 cases, followed by those between 40 and 49, with 1,613 cases, and the under 11s, with 1,466. 

According to Dr Miguel Ángel Martínez-González, professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Navarre and Harvard University in the USA, put it in black and white: "There could be nothing more harmful than going to a New Year's Eve party in an enclosed space". 

"An enclosed space with loud music and people dancing has all the factors required for easy contagion: it's night time, so there's no ultraviolet light to inhibit the spread of the virus; people have to shout to be heard above the music meaning greater droplet transmission; dancing, which is physical exercise, means more air is breathed in and out every minute; and people are crammed in, close together with no masks on; as it's dark, people mistake their drink for someone else's; alcohol consumption makes people more lax... All of these factors combine to create a really explosive cocktail", warned the epidemiologist.

So, if you want to give yourself the best chance of starting 2022 Covid free, then stay at home with your family or host a very small gathering of people you regularly see anyway, and try to keep doors and windows open wherever possible to maximise ventilation.