- With coronavirus infections rising rapidly across more than two dozen U.S states, Dr. Fauci recently cautioned Americans to hold off on traditional Thanksgiving meals.
- Large indoor gatherings have been responsible for several large coronavirus outbreaks in recent months.
- “You may have to bite the bullet and sacrifice” Thanksgiving this year, Fauci said.
With the coronavirus pandemic still an ongoing concern across dozens of states, Thanksgiving this year may look a little bit different. While it’s a longstanding tradition for Americans to celebrate Thanksgiving by getting together with friends and family, large indoor gatherings have been found to be disproportionately responsible for coronavirus infections. As a result, Dr. Anthony Fauci recently said that Americans may have to suck it up and either cancel their Thanksgiving meal plans or, at the very least, keep such gatherings quite small.
“You may have to bite the bullet and sacrifice that social gathering,” Fauci said during an interview with CBS News this week, “unless you’re pretty certain that the people that you’re dealing with are not infected either.”
Fauci added that Thanksgiving gatherings are especially worrisome to the extent that they typically involve older family members who might be especially prone to experiencing severe coronavirus symptoms on account of their age.
Fauci is planning to practice what he preaches and indicated that he will not be spending the Thanksgiving holiday with his children.
“My Thanksgiving is going to look very different this year,” Fauci explained. “I would love to have it with my children, but my children are in three separate states throughout the country, and in order for them to get here, they would all have to go to an airport, get on a plane, and travel with public transportation. They themselves, because of their concern for me and my age, have decided they’re not going to come home for Thanksgiving, even though all three of them want very much to come home for Thanksgiving.”
“When you’re talking about relatives that are getting on a plane, being exposed in an airport, being exposed in a plane, then walk in the door and say ‘Happy Thanksgiving’, that’s what you have to be careful about,” Fauci added.
If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because Fauci issued a similar Thanksgiving warning just a few weeks ago.
“I say that some people in this country are going to be a relatively normal type of a Thanksgiving but in other areas of the country, you better hold off and maybe just have immediate family,” Fauci said. “Make sure you do it in a way that people wear masks and you don’t have large crowds of people. You know, I’d like to say that everything is gonna be great by Thanksgiving, but I’m not so sure it is.”
As it stands now, the latest coronavirus statistics are anything but encouraging. Yesterday, states reported 65,00 new cases, a figure we haven’t seen since early August. And with flu season, along with colder weather, coming up around the corner, experts are bracing for a huge increase in new infections in November and December.
As a final point, and speaking to how risky indoor gatherings can be with respect to the coronavirus, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan earlier in the year said that 67% of Maryland citizens who tested positive for the coronavirus indicated that they recently attended a family gathering.
