Tips for planning Thanksgiving in the time of COVID-19
We are less than two weeks until Thanksgiving, so it’s a good time to talk about quarantining if you and your family are planning to spend the holiday with people outside your household. OHA published a bulletin with harm reduction tips for holiday gatherings, including “Limit your exposure to non-household members for 14 days before visiting older adults or family members who are at higher risk of infection.” A strict quarantine would include no in-person grocery shopping, no working outside the home, and no in-person school for 14 days.
- Quarantine is not possible for many people, so we should continue to encourage people to:
- Use technology
- Use unique ways to stay connected from afar
- Be together separately
- Tell your family you aren’t coming home for Thanksgiving
- Keep gatherings large in thanks and small in size
- There are plenty of articles to share about Canadian Thanksgiving, which was celebrated October 12. Clusters of cases followed that were tied to family gatherings. There are also cases in Oregon that are tied to a Halloween party.
- Situational awareness: There is a group called Dear Pandemic that is “an interdisciplinary all-female team of researchers and clinicians with expertise including nursing, mental health, demography, health policy/economics, and epidemiology.” They posted a compelling Thanksgiving graphic and Thanksgiving Planning Advice.