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Dr Anthony Fauci, left, will be skipping an extended family Thanksgiving this year. Al Drago / AFP via Getty Images, filadendron / Getty Images
The holidays are fast approaching in the United States, and millions of people will soon be faced with the difficult decision to visit friends and family during a pandemic.
Public health experts are also weighing the mental health benefits of seeing loved ones after nearly nine months of isolation against the risks of the coronavirus spreading to their families.
“I think loneliness, depression and anxiety are real effects of this pandemic and people should see each other on this vacation,” said Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, at Business Insider. “My school has a contract that says we can’t travel so I’m not going anywhere, but I would if this arbitrary rule was lifted!”
Other experts cancel their vacation plans and meet at home.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said his children would not come for fear of exposing him and his wife to the coronavirus.
“My Thanksgiving is going to be a lot different this year,” Fauci told CBS News in October. “I would love to have it with my kids, but my kids are in three separate states across the country, and for them to get here they would all have to go to an airport, take a plane, travel with public transport. . “
At 79, Fauci has a higher risk of serious infection. But he’s not the only one making adjustments.
Here’s how other experts plan to keep their families safe this Thanksgiving Day.
The strictest experts virtually celebrate
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Family members wearing masks gather for a meal. Studio 2K / Getty
Neil Sehgal is skipping Thanksgiving dinner with his family for the first time in over a decade.
“I couldn’t live with myself if I infected my mom and dad,” said Sehgal, assistant professor of health policy and management at the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland, Wash. Post.
To visit his parents safely, Sehgal said, he would have to take precautions – including traveling by car, quarantining and getting tested – with “a mind-boggling level of complexity.”
“The emotional toll, for me, is not worth it,” he added.
Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, also canceled his extended family’s Thanksgiving for the first time in 27 years.
Indeed, the risks of getting together in person are too high, according to Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University School of Public Health. Rasmussen tweeted Thursday that she would regret seeing her parents, brother, sister-in-law and niece this year.
“I’d rather celebrate the holidays with them on Zoom rather than FaceTime because someone is in intensive care,” she writes.
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A Zoom meeting. Getty
Even those who are squatting at home still take the opportunity to get creative with holiday traditions.
“I ask my kids to plan our Thanksgiving menu,” Keri Althoff, associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said today. “I’m pretty sure we’ve got popcorn and macaroni and cheese. And they’ll remember it and it’ll be fun for them.”
Although Althoff’s immediate family are not traveling, she said, they still plan to say thanks with the rest of their loved ones via Zoom.
Other experts are skipping the turkey
William Schaffner’s family will be reuniting, but not eating, this Thanksgiving.
“We don’t have Thanksgiving in person around a table. We will all be very happy to see each other, but no hugs or kisses,” Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, told WebMD.
The Schaffner family will reunite (socially distanced) for an hour and a half, he said – but his family intends to skip the turkey, as eating would force them to remove their masks.
© Caitlin Ochs / Reuters
A family hosts an outdoor birthday party at their home in Brooklyn, New York on July 12, 2020. Caitlin Ochs / Reuters
Other experts will eat with their extended families outside.
Anne Liu’s uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents usually get together, she said, but this year her family is shrinking.
“We can try to have small gatherings outside, in a remote, hidden setting where we don’t share food, which kind of seems like the opposite of Thanksgiving. But at least maybe we can see each other, ”Liu, an immunologist and infectious disease physician at Stanford Health Care, said today.
For Irfan Hafiz, infectious disease specialist at Northwestern Medicine, the decision not to see the extended family was not an easy one.
In September, as transmission of the coronavirus appeared to have slowed, Hafiz’s family were considering having a somewhat regular Thanksgiving, he told Today. But October’s record spike in coronavirus cases in the United States forced him to rethink his plans.
“I called my mom and just told her it probably wasn’t a good idea to get together for Thanksgiving this year,” Hafiz said, adding that now only her immediate family will be celebrating together.
© Sebastian Gollnow / Getty Images
A face mask lies on the side of the road in the fall foliage. Sebastian Gollnow / Getty Images
Still, most public health experts are optimistic that the 2021 holidays will be easier to navigate.
“This year is the COVID year. Thanksgiving must be different,” Schaffner told WebMD. “Let’s not be too excited about this. It’s only a year from now.”
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