The new coronavirus continues to spread across the country, leading to escapes and waves from one part of the nation to another before Thanksgiving weekend, when hundreds of people can gather in small groups to celebrate the holiday.
Experts say restricting small gatherings is not enough to stop the spread – more needs to be done.
What’s happening?
Experts told NPR that smaller gatherings are not enough to stop the spread. In fact, according to the NPR, places such as “meat packing plants and warehouses, institutional frameworks such as prisons and retirement communities, and businesses such as restaurants and bars” are also causing the spread.
- “We’ve seen that there’s a really big spread, like in bars and other indoor gatherings where people spend a lot of time near a lot of people,” Ellie Murray, an epidemiologist at Boston University’s School of Public Health, said in an interview with NPR. “And I think these places need to be closed, at least until we can handle the current wave.
Murray says small gatherings endanger people. But they put people in danger because at the little gathering, someone got COVID-19 from elsewhere. Stopping the spread would make small gatherings safer, he said.
Weekend gatherings:
Experts have called on Americans to avoid dinner with the family on Thanksgiving, fearing the extent to which COVID-19 disease could flare up if so many people get together in one place while eating. Small gatherings have been a primary issue in the spread of the new coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.
The CDC last week issued new guidelines calling on all Americans to avoid Thanksgiving dinners with people from outside their households to stop the new coronavirus from spreading.
