Carey Roach, M.D., Adult Internal Medicine
and Pediatrics- combined.
How Do I Handle Thanksgiving during the Covid Pandemic?
I write this the week of Thanksgiving, and I realize it is a bit late, abandoning for the moment what I was to write; but I feel the urgency to say something. And perhaps it would have been more relevant if I were to write about the dangers of too many carbs in your stuffing, or drinking too much alcohol, which is valid, of course. But I felt it to be better to write about what weighs on me the most when it comes to Covid 19: large gatherings, specifically gatherings of more than one generation and at Thanksgiving.
I am seeing, mirroring national trends, a surge of people almost daily whom I or my partners have been diagnosed with COVID 19, or who have been exposed to COVID 19. A pattern that I am seeing more and more are of people in the 50+ age range exposed to grandchildren with Covid 19 or exposed to their grown children who have children with COVID 19.
Multigenerational family activities are a high cause of the spread of COVID 19. It is human nature to think that close family members, although they do not live under the same roof, are less likely to spread Covid because they are familiar to you. I have to fight my own inclination to think this way myself at times. But most grandparents or extended family are not familiar with whom their younger family members associate on a daily basis, and whether they socially distance or wear masks. They have no idea if a grandchild is spending time with two kids or 20, or in what proximity; and adolescents and young adults are most likely to gather without masks or regard to numbers.
Children and young adults tend to be asymptomatic or have very few symptoms to suggest COVID 19, and are therefore an added risk of exposing older people. This seems quite simple to me, and I am sure it is quite simple to most of you who read this, and I know we hear this almost daily. However, time and again I hear of people disregarding this and getting together in large numbers. I see it myself when I go to a restaurant. A family group of 15 people are closely gathered. Multigenerational; and I assume they do not all live under the same roof, and cannot determine the level of exposure to Covid of any member at the table that does not live under the same roof.
Plane tickets have been purchased, food has been bought, and plans have been made, so I do not delude myself further in thinking that what I say will change much of anyone’s Thanksgiving plans. If it does, I congratulate you. If it does not, and you are celebrating with more than 10 people, then I urge you to celebrate Thanksgiving at a distance of 6 feet and wearing masks, except while eating and limit your time as much as possible, like 2 hours, just like at a restaurant. Boring, but you have a better chance of living to comment on how boring that experience was or how boring I was in urging it.
So at Thanksgiving or Christmas, or any family gathering, I encourage you to meet with no more than 10 people, and with no one that has had a temperature of 99° or greater, or has any sort of sore throat, cough, upper respiratory symptoms or diarrhea, or loss of taste or smell. Or who have been exposed to COVID-19 in the past 14 days, or who have pending COVID 19 tests of which they do not know the results.
My family is limiting our gathering to my wife, my three kids, and my parents--seven people and a couple of Yorkies. But we have a virus that we still do not very well understand; so why take the chance with the lives of our families? There will be other Thanksgivings if we take precautions so that we live long enough to celebrate them.
Also, take heart. The vaccine is not too far away. There is hope for the future.
Carey Roach, MD is Board Certified in both Adult Internal Medicine and Pediatrics-Combined. Dr. Roach practices primary care medicine at Barg Family Clinic in Little Rock, Arkansas. His views are his alone, although based on research and experience, but do not necessarily reflect the views of the management and staff of the Barg Family Clinic.
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