I had a long conversation on the phone with my sister last night. As much as we hate to do it, we decided to hold off on a family birthday party for my niece this weekend. It was supposed to take place at my parent's house, but given the circumstances, we decided it was a risk we didn't want to take.

COVID-19 is everywhere. Anecdotally speaking, I don't remember a time since the pandemic began that I have been surrounded by more people getting sick with COVID. The Omicron variant is raging here on the SouthCoast. Luckily, it has been a significantly weaker strain of the virus, but that has not been enough to ease our minds to gather a crowd around our parents.

Every single member of our family has had a "close contact" this week. Right here at Fun 107, I shared a studio with Maddie, who is questionable with COVID. She still feels sick. Even though she has tested negative four times, her doctor now feels like she probably had COVID a week or two ago and is still dealing with the residual effects.

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I've been lucky. It's been a while since there's been something I've really wanted to do that I couldn't do because of the virus, but that streak is ending.

My dad has recently undergone some surgery and is still a bit compromised. While it saddens me to be cancelling events once again, it just isn't worth the risk. From where I'm sitting, taking into account the amount of COVID by which our family has been surrounded, it is a miracle that we haven't contracted the virus in the past couple of weeks.

I believe our luck will eventually run out as this variant peaks on the SouthCoast. The last thing I want to do is to bring the virus to my parents.

As an eternal optimist, I point back to the hope that Dr. Eliesel Lacerda De La Cruz had about the Omicron variant. The Southcoast Health Chair for Infectious Disease Prevention agreed that there is a chance that the extremely contagious variant may bring the herd immunity everyone has been hoping for over the past two years.

Like Lloyd Christmas said, "So you're telling me there's a chance."

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Answers to 25 common COVID-19 vaccine questions

Vaccinations for COVID-19 began being administered in the U.S. on Dec. 14, 2020. The quick rollout came a little more than a year after the virus was first identified in November 2019. The impressive speed with which vaccines were developed has also left a lot of people with a lot of questions. The questions range from the practical—how will I get vaccinated?—to the scientific—how do these vaccines even work?

Keep reading to discover answers to 25 common COVID-19 vaccine questions.

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