Thread by @bopinion

🥶 Dining in the freezing cold
📺Watching a virtual Macy’s parade
🦃Carving the bird over Zoom

Thanksgiving in 2020 is going to be like no other in U.S. history, with the CDC advising that people postpone travel and stay home as much as possible trib.al/u6M6Glp

Despite the precautions many are taking around Turkey Day this year, some are still gearing up for private gatherings with friends and relatives.

We asked @MaxNisen, @skgreen, @foxjust and @fayeflam to answer the toughest Thanksgiving questions trib.al/u6M6Glp

Unless you've already established a pod, there's no realistic way to be 100% safe.

While risk can be reduced with pre-isolation and other measures, unless precautions are followed strictly by everyone, they're more theater than protection trib.al/u6M6Glp

Take quarantining.

Limiting interactions is not always possible, and people can have very different definitions of what's safe, especially when caution is politicized and pandemic fatigue is common trib.al/u6M6Glp

Travel also introduces new risks.

Wearing high-quality masks on an airplane or in rest areas while driving — the safest choice — can reduce exposure chances. But likely holiday crowding adds danger trib.al/u6M6Glp

Covid-19 tests shouldn't be used as a permission slip for incautious mingling:

🧪PCR tests are highly accurate, but have long turnaround times so there's post-test exposure risk
🧪Antigen tests are faster, but have varied accuracy
trib.al/u6M6Glp

🍽️Eating outdoors
😷Mask use
🌬️Indoor ventilation
🪟Opening windows
👪Distance between family groups

Keeping this up will be difficult, especially in colder climates or unless everyone gets kicked out right after dinner, writes @MaxNisen trib.al/u6M6Glp

It’s on all of us to keep things safe:

🦃Hosts must keep things as safe as possible and should communicate expectations in advance
🦃Guests should follow those precautions and suggest others

The pandemic holiday mantra: Rude is better than dead trib.al/u6M6Glp

As a host, the worst part is not knowing what to do: Should you follow your state’s official and fairly lax restrictions on gatherings, the CDC’s ever-changing guidelines, or just cancel entirely?

Ultimately, @skgreen went with the safest choice

https://twitter.com/skgreen/status/1329929575590207491

Last year, @foxjust had 13 guests over for Thanksgiving dinner.

This year, it looks like it’s just going to be his wife and son, but that doesn’t mean they're going to be antisocial, thanks to outdoor strolls and Zoom chats trib.al/u6M6Glp

This year, more than half of Americans are planning a smaller-than-usual Thanksgiving gathering, with 22% planning to host for the very first time.

That means it may also be a tough Thanksgiving for turkey farmers trib.al/u6M6Glp

Skipping a big Thanksgiving gathering is a small thing to ask — trivial, compared to:

💼Asking people to sacrifice their jobs
📝Take their kids out of school
💈Put their businesses on the line trib.al/u6M6Glp

A recent survey out of Ohio State University indicated that about 38% of Americans plan to have a big Thanksgiving dinner with 10 or more people.

It makes little sense to talk about masks in this context — people can’t wear them while they’re eating trib.al/u6M6Glp

Studies that track how people actually get the disease keep pointing to the three C’s —

🚪Closed environments
🍾Cowds
🫂Close contact

Combining those has led to numerous so-called super-spreader events trib.al/u6M6Glp

The stakes are much higher in the U.S. than they were last summer:

Hospital beds are filling up. There’s no fixed point at which a hospital becomes overwhelmed — hospital workers can be stretched too thin to offer everyone optimal care trib.al/u6M6Glp

Canceling traditional Thanksgiving may seem Grinch-like, but a small sacrifice now will mean many more of us will be around to celebrate next year trib.al/u6M6Glp