{"id":272777,"date":"2020-10-23T06:20:09","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T10:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=272777"},"modified":"2020-10-23T06:20:09","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T10:20:09","slug":"travel-on-thanksgiving-pass-the-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/10\/23\/travel-on-thanksgiving-pass-the-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"Travel on Thanksgiving? Pass the COVID"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For local celebrations, self-quarantining for two weeks before a holiday event would minimize risk if all those invited committed to doing the same. But some people have to work outside the home. (Pexels photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Molly Wiese was truly stumped. Her parents and siblings live in Southern California, and Wiese, a 35-year-old lawyer, has returned home every Christmas since she moved to Minnesota in 2007.<\/p>\n

Because of the pandemic, Wiese thought it would be wiser to stay put for once. But in June, Wiese\u2019s father was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and they feared this could be his final holiday season.<\/p>\n

Should she fly with her husband and two young sons to California, putting her immunocompromised father at risk of COVID-19? Or stay home and miss out on making treasured holiday memories with her parents and children?<\/p>\n

Her children are in day care, and Wiese\u2019s husband works at a school. They don\u2019t have enough vacation time to self-quarantine before or after a flight, and driving eight days round trip isn\u2019t practical.<\/p>\n

She fears giving her father coronavirus. But her parents, who live in the Inland Empire city of Yucaipa, believe it\u2019s worth the risk to see Wiese\u2019s children and have \u201cour normal Christmas,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdeally, we\u2019d have a vaccine,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a realistic expectation.\u201d Pfizer, the apparent leader in the COVID vaccine race, says it won\u2019t even be ready to apply for vaccine approval until late November at the earliest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Wiese\u2019s conundrum is especially high-stakes, her story illustrates the tough decision millions of Americans are facing about whether and how to travel for the winter holidays.<\/p>\n

The best way to avoid spreading disease would be to avoid traveling or widening one\u2019s social circles. For local celebrations, self-quarantining for two weeks before a holiday event would minimize risk if all those invited committed to doing the same. But some people have to work outside the home.<\/p>\n

For everyone, after at least seven months of being mostly sequestered, the winter holidays pose an almost insurmountable temptation. Even public health and infectious disease experts recognize the dilemma.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much to be gained by physical touch, by being in that room and not in a two-dimensional Zoom or FaceTime screen,\u201d said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong<\/a>, an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco. \u201cAnd even to embrace, with the right preparation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation\u2019s authority on infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, isn\u2019t immune to the problem. He told PRI\u2019s \u201cThe World\u201d on Oct. 13<\/a> that he and his three adult daughters, each living in a different state, were still deciding whether being together would be \u201cworth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day, Fauci told \u201cCBS Evening News<\/a>\u201d that his family\u2019s Thanksgiving reunion was off, given the risks posed by air travel. \u201cYou may have to bite the bullet and sacrifice that social gathering, unless you\u2019re pretty certain that the people that you\u2019re dealing with are not infected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Robert Redfield<\/a>, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Dr. Deborah Birx<\/a>, the Trump administration\u2019s senior coordinator in the COVID fight, have both warned that Thanksgiving gatherings could spread the virus.<\/p>\n

In California, public health officials are taking a \u201charm reduction\u201d approach: They aren\u2019t encouraging multi-household gatherings, but they\u2019ve issued guidelines<\/a> to make get-togethers safer if they happen outdoors and last less than two hours.<\/p>\n

Officials in Los Angeles County, which has seen transmission rates increase<\/a> in recent weeks, released similar guidance<\/a>, acknowledging that people separated from their loved ones for months increasingly yearn for that contact.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are threading the needle here, but I think it is appropriate for us to try to do some of the activities that people are desperate to be able to do, with absolute adherence to the guidance,\u201d Barbara Ferrer, director of the county\u2019s public health department, said at an Oct. 14 news conference.<\/p>\n

Around the world, national holidays have fueled the spread of COVID-19 in explosive ways. In China, where the pandemic started, an estimated 5 million people traveling for Chinese New Year<\/a> left Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, before a travel ban was enacted. In Iran, the pandemic was aided by Nowruz<\/a>, a two-week spring celebration that prompted millions to travel. In Israel, parties and religious gatherings for Purim<\/a> caused widespread transmission in late March<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day celebrations fueled surges in the United States, which is why Thanksgiving frightens public health officials. Last year, more than 55 million people<\/a> were expected to travel during the days surrounding that fourth Thursday in November.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, officials across the nation are using a light touch when it comes to warnings.<\/p>\n

In Minnesota, where Wiese lives and cases are hitting record highs<\/a>, officials urge the public to avoid crowded stores and large indoor gatherings with other households, but say outdoor Thanksgiving<\/a> dinners with local friends and family are less risky. Their guidance doesn\u2019t explain how to endure an outdoor Thanksgiving in Minnesota. The average high in Minneapolis<\/a> on Nov. 26 is 33 degrees.<\/p>\n

Michael Osterholm<\/a>, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, is waving his hands to stop the game.<\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t self-quarantine for 10 to 14 days before the event \u2014 that is, no contact with people besides members of your household who are also quarantining \u2014 don\u2019t go to another household\u2019s Thanksgiving dinner, he said: The state has already seen too many examples of vulnerable people becoming sick and dying after attending weddings, funerals and birthday parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet this be your COVID year,\u201d Osterholm said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very challenging year, but you don\u2019t want to introduce this virus into family settings and experience the consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osterholm and his partner will spend Thanksgiving and Christmas without extended family, even though their children and grandchildren are all local. Because all his grandchildren are in day care or school, there isn\u2019t enough time for their families to self-quarantine before enjoying a holiday meal together.<\/p>\n

He was sympathetic to Wiese\u2019s \u201ccompelling\u201d plight. If she decides to fly to California, he said, she should sequester her family as much as possible for 10 days beforehand, then spend no more than two days with her father.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if she got infected, she wouldn\u2019t be most infectious until probably day three,\u201d he said. \u201cSo if she spends those two days with him, she can feel relatively good about the fact that she didn\u2019t put them at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those who do travel, driving is much safer than flying because drivers can be isolated in a household pod and avoid exposure to the coronavirus by forgoing restaurants and by disinfecting bathroom and gas pump handles before touching them.<\/p>\n

Dr. Iahn Gonsenhauser<\/a>, chief quality and patient safety officer for the Ohio State University\u2019s Wexner Medical Center, said he plans to drive with his family \u2014 overnighting at a hotel on the way \u2014 to spend Thanksgiving with his sister\u2019s family in Colorado.<\/p>\n

He and his family keep to themselves and work from home as much as possible, leaving the house only for groceries and basic errands while eschewing restaurants and malls, he said. If anyone in either family began showing COVID symptoms, or had confirmed exposure to a COVID-positive person, the whole trip would be called off instantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is why we make all plans with a refundable reservation,\u201d he said. \u201cIf people have no way of backing out of their reservations, they\u2019re more inclined to push through an apparent risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chin-Hong offered this advice for holiday flyers: Get tested before the flight for peace of mind, buy tickets on a plane that is leaving middle seats empty, use highly protective N95 masks and possibly face shields, and blast the individual airplane vents directly onto each family member to disrupt potential virus particles. And, of course, wash your hands frequently.<\/p>\n

Chin-Hong is taking that approach on a planned family trip to New York City to visit his mother, who is in her 80s and wants to see her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Every visit they have could be their last, Chin-Hong said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, the risk-benefit ratio really supports me going to see her.\u201d<\/p>\n

After hearing the advice from Chin-Hong and other infectious disease experts, Wiese decided last weekend to buy plane tickets to visit her parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really did help us make a decision that was giving me a lot of anxiety,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Kaiser Health News<\/a> (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation<\/a> which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.<\/em><\/p>\n

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