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EDITORIAL: This holiday season, raise a glass to your health and the health of others

Nurses, doctors, care aides and long-term-care support staff are receiving their COVID-19 vaccinations on the North Shore for the first time this week. It is, frankly, the only thing we really wanted for Christmas.
Covid testing site North Van
A Vancouver Coastal Health nurse prepares to administer a swab test for COVID-19 to a patient at the North Vancouver testing site at 255 Lloyd Ave.

Nurses, doctors, care aides and long-term-care support staff are receiving their COVID-19 vaccinations on the North Shore for the first time this week. It is, frankly, the only thing we really wanted for Christmas.

After a year like we’ve had, it would be very easy to lament what we have lost, of which there has been much. But, in the spirit of Christmas, we’d much rather be grateful for the things we have received.

Our community was tested and we showed how quickly our households, our charities and our local businesses can adapt to a huge challenge. We saw the vast majority of regular folk put aside their own needs and wants in support of a common good.

As always, we thank our local volunteers at North Shore Rescue and the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue who have faced an extremely busy year under extraordinarily challenging conditions.

Around the world, our scientists and leaders came together to work collaboratively and produce vaccines in record time.

Mostly, it is the front-line workers who put themselves in harm’s way to keep us safe, cared for, and fed to whom we owe our biggest thanks.

It won’t be the kind of Christmas many of us are used to. Like the song says: “Someday soon, we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.”

With the vaccines now rolling out, and the darkest days of winter done, we can now look forward with genuine optimism to brighter and better times ahead.

To all of those who have worked so hard to get us this far, we’ll raise a glass and offer this Christmas toast: To your health.

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