My daughter got Covid for Christmas . So did 1.5M other people in the past week, ruining a lot of Christmas' and how many people went to family gatherings not knowing they had it (it's almost impossible to find test kits in NY/NJ) .  So a Covid test kit is a great new holiday gift and we should invest in test kit companies because one person gets it and a dozen people she was in contact with end up getting tests – at $20 each – that's Capitalism in action!    Jackie goes to school in Hoboken at Stevens, where she has an apartment with 4 other girls and where they plan on holding in-person classes next semester (3 weeks from now) and she came home and visited her friends and got sick the next day (Christmas Eve) and took a home test, which showed positive.  There was nowhere to get a confirming test so hopefully today or tomorrow but it was impossible to book an appointment and the last place we want her to go is a hospital or clinic, packed with people who have various strains of covid.   So we're going to get her to a drive-through center for a proper test but, if it's positive, then she has to isolate for 10 days or 3 days after she tests negative (of course she is already self-quarantining and Christmas was ruined).  Still, thank God it seems no worse than the flu at the moment – not that that's a picnic.  She says she has the worst headache she's ever had but breathing is OK.   Around the country, we had another 9/11-type day on Thursday, with 3,354 deaths and we're averaging 1,409 deaths per day – up from 300 over the summer and before Omicron, which is, as I'm sure you've heard – " milder "  We have a different sort of problem now as so many people are sick at the same time it's affecting the workforce – including health care professionals .   If we already have a shortage of Doctors and Nurses, it certainly doesn't help of 1-2% of them have Covid, does it?  Understaffed airlines had to cancel over 2,000 flights this weekend, including 1,200 yesterday alone.  Ironically, this then causes hundreds of passengers per flight to spend hours in crowded airport termiinals with nothing to do but breath on each other….     IN PROGRESSS