A tool to understand your risk. How safe is a Thanksgiving dinner in Des Moines? Or Boise? Or Atlanta? Researchers at Georgia Tech created a risk assessment tool that can estimate the chance that someone infected with the virus will show up at dinner in your county. Gather with 25 people in New York City, for example, and there’s a 21 percent chance at least one person is positive. In Stutsman County, N.D., there’s a 99 percent chance.
My 81-year-old mother-in-law is proceeding with her “Friendsgiving” plans. Inviting over two other couples (mil is a widow), so only five people but three households. I think they all think they are being “safe,” but it isn’t as though they have been solely staying at home. Mil went to the grocery store this morning. Why a retired person purposely chooses to go to the store on a Saturday is beyond me. Even in non-Covid times! One couple I think does always stay at home and gets groceries delivered. The other is doing a renovation on their home - I have no idea how much they are out and about.
I just think it is total foolishness on her part.
Ds got tested today - negative. I imagine he will have to stop for gas in the RV between now and Tuesday, but it’s the best he can do.
I like that Ga. Tech risk tool except that it only goes down to 10 people. I haven’t been a group thst large since March.
There was a recent article about that: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-even-a-small-thanksgiving-is-dangerous/
If you do not want to get COVID-19, be extra careful after Thanksgiving, since there will be many more newly infected people from superspreader events (indoor family gatherings) that you have to worry about being exposed to when buying groceries or toilet paper or whatever.
Good point, @ucbalumnus .
My mom had a fever she thinks (she has no thermometer which I didn’t know) last weekend and now she has blood clots in her leg. No loss of taste or smell. I don’t know what happened and if mom lied or didn’t disclose that she had a fever earlier in the week but the nurse practitioner did not order a COVID test when she went to the doctor for the leg. My sister who works in health care, told mom that it didn’t matter if she could still smell, she had 2 symptoms and needed to call and get a COVID test.
My niece is currently isolating at her boyfriend’s apartment, the roommate has COVID. She tested negative but returned to the apartment and the symptomatic roommate.
My sister and I both think that this current surge happened because of Halloween. Lots of young people parties that weekend. My town had a bowling tournament that weekend, so far 30 cases have been recorded.
Turns out a friend of ours has Covid and is sick. Not terribly sick, but has several symptoms. His wife and son have tested positive, but so far are are asymptomatic. Because we still still be cooking a big dinner for just 3 people, we are planning to drop off dinner for our friends (they live 5 minutes away). We will just text before we leave, put the food on their front step and ring the doorbell. Its “dong,dong ditch” Thanksgiving style!
Spouse went food shopping very early today. There was hardly anyone in the store. I had optimized the list for easy in and out. Usually I love shopping together but woke up this morning thinking it might not be such a great idea. Maybe others were thinking the same.
We went out as a family for a nice dinner tonight. It was 48 degrees and we sat outside. Pretty darn cold (and its unseasonable warm for NE). Trying to keep the restaurants in our town in business. It’s not looking good. Very few people in small shops. People are afraid for good reason. There is NO way to do outside dining in New England for Thanksgiving Dinner.
I envy those in warmer climates where it’s possible.
Other than the comment I left upthread as to my mom and the wisdom of forgoing seeing someone that might not be alive to see next year (assuming you, or I, etc. is alive to see them), I haven’t posted here since the monthly covid threads went away.
Fwiw: I was religious as to the covid protocols till somewhere around late June. Cycled a half dozen good masks, chapped my hands with sanitizer to the point the littlest cut inflamed and wouldn’t heal, left non-perishables in the shop for a few days and washed the rest. Kids showed up on the weekend, we all practiced the 6 feet, etc.
There’s a limit and I guess I reached it.
After that, I turned apostate… went back to living and going about life pretty much as it was before. Still wear the mask, because those who pull it under their noses while they’re in the store with me, demand I do. Been to Texas once, NO four times, Mississippi probably half a dozen. Mask compliance was pretty good in the suburbs of Austin, so-so around NO, non-existent in the fishing areas south of NO, and Mississippi doesn’t have a state mandate. Meaning that, even in chain grocery stores, it’s maybe 60%.
Day trip to Palmetto, Ga. last week, to buy a cabinet saw, reminded me that GA doesn’t have a statewide mandate either. Only person I saw there wearing one was at the drive-thru window of a Wendy’s I grabbed lunch from.
I mention these things only to point out that not everyone is calculating risk/reward the same. That time will tell who’s most correct. And that the passage of time always takes away our ability to chose who we’ll visit with one more time.
Hope y’alls holidays are happy.
It was beautiful in NYC today. D2 needed to pick up few things in my apartment so we decided to have lunch at a neighborhood Italian restaurant. It had a nice courtyard with heaters and a front outdoor space. We went when the restaurant opened. We chose to sit in the courtyard, but noticed a large table set up for around 10 people. An hour later we noticed a group of people started coming in - they had tween kids and many sets of parents. Before we knew it, the place was filled with 20+ people. D2 and I quickly asked our server if we could finish our meal out in the front.
I don’t know why they thought it was ok to have a party after all of those warnings by CDC, and our Governor/Mayor.
@ucbalumnus, a very helpful thought, albeit sobering.
If anyone hasn’t thought about it, you can probably still support local shops even with not going into them.
We’ve been able to call and tell them what we want. If they don’t have it, they can often get it for us. Then we do curbside pickup setting up a time personally.
When we wanted a game, but didn’t know specifically what, we just had to describe some others we like and the game shop owner made a terrific suggestion to fit us (7 Wonders). Seems better than if we had been browsing alone TBH.
Simply not having an “order here” website doesn’t mean one has to shop in person.
We’re going to be getting more games soon from our small game store.
I’m hoping to keep this a non-Amazon Christmas. I don’t know that we can do it with everything, but it’s my hope.
@oldfort that is horrible. Around here, groups are being very limited at restaurants. They are starting to enforce and fine people. One bar a few towns over was closed down completely even though they were serving food because they violated the capacity and distancing guidelines.
I don’t want to see our restaurants close…but I also won’t patronize any place that doesn’t adhere to the capacity guidelines in my state. Actually, until it gets warmer, I’ll probably be doing take out.
We are getting gift certificates as gifts for future use to locally owned places.
I am looking at some of the college Covid dashboards. Feeling sorry for those kids who tested positive the past few days and now can’t go home for Thanksgiving and the end of the term. They have to stick around, when most of the campus is leaving until January.
I thought washing glasses with soap a few times a day was supposed to help prevent the fogging. How does he handle it during surgery?
Wishing nothing but continued good health to you and yours, @catahoula but let’s be honest–time has already told. As a beloved former poster here used to say “the plural of anecdote is not evidence.”
H just shared a cute quote with me, though I’m unsure of the original source - sounds late night comic"ish" to me:
“Be sure to discuss politics at Thanksgiving dinner. It will likely save you some shopping and money at Christmas.”
Brought a chuckle here anyway.
LOL I long for the days where all we had to worry about is someone getting offended.
My bil wears contacts, I was talking about myself not him.
I wash my glasses with Dawn, it doesn’t seem to help the fogging issues.
Just did our second Covid test before road trip. Man, they had it down. This was a PCR mouth swab that was free and that you did in your car. I’m curious about why some places/states have long lines and others don’t. I signed up for this last week, and each half hour there were a couple of hundred slots. Nice steady line while we were there. Easy in and out.