Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and it's obvious that millions of Americans around the country are going to have some sort of family or friend get-together. And after hitting record numbers of cases this Tuesday (a 2100+ death toll) since May, this would be impairing and could cause a potential wave which would overwhelm health care systems. And CNN medical analyst, Jonathan Reiner is calling this turkey holiday, the "mother of all super spreader events".
Reiner warns the consequences of millions and millions of Americans that are ignoring health guidelines, saying that it could evolve into chaos, an "explosion of Covid-19 infections". He uses the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, that caused 849 deaths to be confirmed, and over 1000 infected. "Now imagine that on a massive scale - people leaving from every airport in the United States, and carrying the virus with them". He takes into account the damage that was done by a single motorcycle rally, and how many people were harmed. So imagine the harm that a single airport would do, what about 100 of them?
Covid-19 is not travel friendly, and implemented safety procedures at airports could only do so much. People aren't always social distancing, and tests only work when there is enough viral RNA that would make the virus detectable, which wouldn't be a possibility if someone contracted the infection and few days or so ago. The best and most responsible thing we could do as a society is to strengthen herd community and stay home, not travel, and implement health guidelines when out. Let's not be greedy and be a bit more patient until high cases subside. And have a Happy Thanksgiving!
8 comments:
I love Thanksgiving, it's really the only time of the year I can be with my entire family. However, I completely understand the consequence of holding a gathering. It's understandable to feel upset that the holidays this season are far from usual, but I don't believe that's any excuse for partaking in Thanksgiving as normal. The reality is, we are in a global pandemic, and if every family decides to meet with each other on this day, cases are going to skyrocket. While it is true the death rate is fairly low, it is not zero, and hundreds, even thousands, of people will die from the careless actions of others. So, I agree with Jennifer, we all need to just be a little more patient this year and stay home.
Unfortunately, it seems that tens of millions of Americans have travelled for Thanksgiving despite all the warnings. So as a result, I think we can expect another extreme surge of cases that might once again hit a record high. I think that the U.S. covid-19 cases have gotten to the certain point where it'll only be able to rescued by a vaccine. I don't see it going down anytime soon and I think we're just going to have consistently high or even higher cases until the vaccine is approved and ready to be distributed. However, with Christmas coming up very soon in just a month, I expect the travel guidelines and precautions to not be heeded again, just looking at the Thanksgiving results. So maybe during the end of December/beginning of January, there'll be an even higher surge of cases as many people want to fly home to their family for Christmas. Fortunately, maybe the vaccine will also be distributed by then. Right now, it seems like we're nearing the final stage of this pandemic and hopefully we do not mess this up.
A demographic I'm interested to see statistics about regarding Thanksgiving travel is college students. I wonder how many college students stayed at school (if they were attending classes in-person or chose to stay in dorms), and how many college students travelled back home to see family. If this "turkey holiday" is already the "mother" of super spreader events, I am truly scared to see what winter holidays and travel will look like, especially since the break will be even LONGER than the 5 days off students typically get for Thanksgiving.
Clearly, the U.S. should impose more stringent regulations about coronavirus, but at some point, it cannot stop people from risking their lives and those of others. The unprecedented length of this national emergency makes it enormously difficult to De Facto restrict people’s right of assembly. Guidelines can only go so far. There are ridiculous decisions like the one just made by the Supreme Court not imposing capacity limits on places of religious worship. This is stupid and most definitely will cost lives, but this follows the line of reasoning that people don’t want to strip Americans of their right to assemble and practice religion for this extended time period. Even though we are in a fatal national emergency…Sigh.
Happy (late) Thanksgiving!
I agree with all the commenters above. If we just consider data from local Bay Area counties post-Thanksgiving, it is clear that the increase in travel prior to the holiday has directly influenced the enormous surge of Covid-19 cases we now see. Health officials from Santa Clara County began releasing more information mandating “tighter restrictions” and a “quarantine” guideline on “travel,” following a devastating high of 760 cases reported earlier this afternoon. Additionally, both the San Mateo and San Francisco counties are designated to fall into the “purple tier,” our “state’s most restrictive tier, according to [the San Mateo] county website.” As so many healthcare workers battle this pandemic relentlessly, this situation is, as many of my peers state, only getting worse as we transition into the midst of the holiday season. With a vaccine in the works, as Brian mentioned, there is a greater possibility of effective solutions to ease the onslaught of burnout and stress these medical professionals are facing. And hopefully, a greater number of Americans might choose to make sacrifices for the good of others in their community, aware of the extreme consequences of their current actions and decisions.
https://abc7news.com/coronavirus-bay-area-live-updates-update-california-shelter-in-place/8335196/
Many of us are aware of and experiencing the increase of COVID-19 around us – including what that means as we enter the holiday season. But I don't believe that there is necessarily one single thing responsible for the worsening state of the virus. First, many places experienced a slight spike in cases after Halloween likely because of increased gatherings. Then, we had Thanksgiving which could contribute to increasing cases from family and friend gatherings, as well as students coming home from college. I think what Varsha said about seeing statistics regarding how traveling college students play into this would be super interesting– on one hand, a lot of college students tested positive for COVID-19 early on in the school year and may still be immune making travel and reuniting with family and friends not very dangerous. However, in the case that they lose immunity or never got it to begin with, the surge of students in airports and back to their hometowns may have also had an negative impact. One thing, however, that has been predicted by many healthcare professionals is that we were already at risk for a drastic increase or "second wave" of cases especially because we are in the midst of flu season: some people's immune systems may be worse, there may be more people in hospitals, etc. A doctor I know told me this week that if we are in a public place with about 20 people, we can expect 1-3 of those people to be positive for COVID-19 without knowing it or being symptomatic. I think this also plays a huge role into the rising cases. As people became more comfortable going out and being with others a few months ago, that also opened the door for people to contract and spread the disease without being aware of it. So, if we know at least these circumstances, staying home and following restrictions is not only smart for oneself, but also is incredibly valued among healthcare workers, essential workers and hospitals who are working tirelessly everyday.
With the holiday season inching closer, there will be no doubt that people will start ignoring quarantine restrictions and begin traveling, and with Thanksgiving over, it's almost expected that there will be a surge in cases. With November already being one of the worst months, with over 100,000 cases each day for 27 consecutive days, the possible increase in cases is quite worrisome. Since it takes many days for testings to show results, we could except a spike in cases soon, and this spike could "overwhelm hospitals [that are] already stretched to capacity," according to CNN Health. With tens of thousands of individuals being hospitalized, many hospitals aren't prepared to take this influx of patients, which could lead to many issues. As Dr. Megan Ranney, a CNN medical analyst and director, states: that this "is like a natural disaster occurring in all 50 states at the same time," the upcoming holiday season does not need to give hope in the endless increase of cases. And although family get-togethers and parties are important during this time of year, I believe that it would be better to sacrifice those gatherings in order to help maintain the spread of the virus both for the sake of safety and the wellbeing for the doctors, nurses, and caretakers during this holiday season.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/29/health/us-coronavirus-sunday/index.html
Well, to start off, hopefully everyone had a great (and safe) Thanksgiving. While I feel most people in Aragon were safe and followed guidelines I don’t know about the rest of America. According to this Washington Post article, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/fears-of-coronavirus-jump-intensify-in-thanksgivings-aftermath/2020/11/28/0ca1554e-31c2-11eb-96c2-aac3f162215d_story.html
“Some 4 million Americans have been diagnosed with the coronavirus in November — twice the previous record, which was set last month…over a million people passed through U.S. airports the day before Thanksgiving…On Thanksgiving Day, hospitalizations in the United States exceeded 90,000 people for the first time. The following day, the country hit 13 million cases.”
These stats worry me as we head into the holiday season, the same time last year that kickstarted the whole pandemic. As a means to fix this looming inevitable, I can only really think of legislation to prevent mass travel, however, that would definitely face backlash in regards to taking away freedoms. I’ve said in another post, the only guarantee to counter the rashness of others is a vaccine which can only be hoped to arrive asap.
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