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As Americans prepare for what will likely be a non-traditional Thanksgiving, health experts and state officials implore the public to heed their warnings not to travel and to avoid large gatherings and the mix of households, as the country tries to figure out what experts are calling an “uncontrolled” spread of the coronavirus.
“If we focus on travel and large indoor gatherings which we know are transmission engines, we would expect to see a massive increase in addition to an already dire situation,” said Dr. John Brownstein, director of innovation at Boston Children’s Hospital and ABC. News contributor, warning that such a surge could lead to a “humanitarian crisis”.
The holidays have proven to be a catalyst for COVID-19 spread across the country. Earlier this year, after every summer vacation, the United States reported a significant increase in infection across the country, and experts say Thanksgiving could have all the components of a potentially fatal event.
Prior to Memorial Day in May, the national seven-day average of new cases hovered around 21,000 new cases per day. Five weeks later, that average had doubled, according to an ABC analysis of data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project.
A similar trend occurred just over a month later after the July 4th weekend. Less than three weeks after Independence Day, the average number of new cases has increased by almost 40%, with nearly 60,000 patients hospitalized.
And after the summer wave began to decline, it was shortly after Labor Day that new cases started to rise again, bringing the country to its final wave. As the weather cooled, public health experts who had long warned against large gatherings began to sound the alarm that even small gatherings – especially those indoors, with poor ventilation – could result in the transmission of COVID-19.
Since mid-September, the number of daily coronavirus cases has increased by almost 400%, and now the virus is significantly more widespread than it has ever been during the summer.
The national average of new daily cases is now more than 100,000 higher than it was in July and five times higher than it was during the initial peak in April.
In November alone, the United States reported nearly 3.2 million cases of COVID-19, making it by far the worst month on record for daily cases, with a quarter of total cases from the country.
Cases are increasing in all but one state, Hawaii, while current hospitalizations are increasing in 48 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico.
Daily deaths in the United States are up more than 30% from last week, with 10,617 deaths recorded in the past seven days – a rate of around one death reported every minute.
In anticipation of the potential fallout, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines last week strongly recommending postponing travel and staying home this year as “the best way to protect yourself and others.”
“Celebrating virtually or with the people you live with is the safest choice for Thanksgiving,” the CDC said.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease specialist, has taken to the airwaves, repeatedly advising Americans to limit Thanksgiving gatherings to members of the same household.
“The trip, the congregation setting, not wearing masks – there’s a good chance you will see a surge superimposed on a wave,” Fauci warned. “What we do now will be reflected in two, three weeks.”
This message, please stay home, was echoed by governors and local officials across the country.
“We don’t really want to see mom on Thanksgiving and bury her before Christmas,” Mississippi State Medical Association president Dr. Mark Horne said in a virtual meeting last week.
“This year, if you love someone, it’s smarter and better to stay away – as hard as it is to say and hear,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. Press release. “Because if I were to predict, you’re going to see a significant spike after Thanksgiving.”
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker also advises residents to meet only with members of their own household.
“We urge everyone to make a tough choice for Thanksgiving,” Baker said at a press conference last week. “We saw what happened in Canada on their Thanksgiving in October.”
And seven Midwestern governors – five Democrats and two Republicans – joined forces in a video and an opinion piece in the Washington Post to deliver a bipartisan message calling for precautions during the upcoming holidays.
“Think about your last Thanksgiving and the people around you,” they said. “Imagine their faces – laughing with you, watching football with you, or even arguing with you about politics. As hard as it is not to see them on Thanksgiving, imagine how much harder it would be if their chairs were empty. next year. “
“We have to make short-term sacrifices for our long-term health,” the video concludes.
Despite the warnings, millions of people are still traveling this holiday, with the Transportation Security Administration last Sunday screening more than a million people for just the second time since the start of the pandemic.
And although the role of indoor gatherings in viral transmission cannot be fully quantified, experts point out that they are a major contributor to the spread of COVID-19.
“These gatherings are taking place under conditions with poor adherence to social distancing and masking with sub-optimal ventilation,” Brownstein said.
Experts also claim that travelers who get tested before returning home doesn’t mean they’re protected.
“Confusion around testing also means that many false negatives will give these asymptomatic cases or cases during the presymptomatic phase an unwarranted sense of security,” Brownstein said, adding that “due to this large population mix across the country , we expect hospitalizations to cross 100,000 and deaths to approach 300,000 by the end of the year. “
But ultimately, for millions of Americans, these COVID-19 numbers are more than just statistics; they represent family members and friends lost to the virus, who will miss this holiday.
“I can understand the humans behind these numbers,” Brandie Kopsas-Kingsley, an intensive care nurse from IU Health Indianapolis, Indiana, told ABC News. “Each of these was a life and a person that mattered. As we celebrate Thanksgiving, it’s an empty chair. And we all have a great responsibility to quarantine, to stay safe, not to go and see. others.”
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