- Keep in mind that outdoor is safer than indoors.
- Keep away from crowded, poorly ventilated areas.
- In case you are sick or have signs, don’t host or attend a gathering.
- Get examined when you have signs of COVID-19 or have shut contact with somebody who has COVID-19. Click here to discover a testing location in Minnesota.
- The CDC nonetheless recommends delaying journey till you’re absolutely vaccinated and offers testing suggestions for individuals who are planning to journey.
- Masks are obligatory on public transportation, together with buses and airplanes.
- In case you are gathering with a gaggle of individuals from a number of households and doubtlessly from completely different elements of the nation, take into account some extra precautions previous to gathering (e.g., lay low earlier than you go, keep away from crowded indoor areas, get examined) to additional cut back danger.
The Thanksgiving vacation comes within the midst of what well being officers name a “COVID blizzard” in Minnesota, with “alarmingly excessive case ranges” and a statewide positivity price close to 10%, which is the state’s threshold for “excessive danger.”
COVID-19 hospitalizations in Minnesota are additionally the best they’ve been all 12 months, based on state information.
“I do suppose folks needs to be somewhat extra cautious approaching this Thanksgiving,” stated Dr. Abinash Virk, an infectious illness advisor at Mayo Clinic.
She recommends internet hosting smaller vacation gatherings, carrying masks round aged and immunocompromised members of the family, and limiting attainable exposures earlier than the vacation by laying low over the subsequent 10 days.
“We’re at very related numbers as we have been final 12 months and as you recognize, final 12 months this was sort of the start of our winter wave. So how is that this going to go the subsequent few weeks? Laborious to say. I feel we’re nonetheless involved numbers will go up,” Virk stated. “I’m involved as a result of it’s winter. We will probably be indoors greater than outdoor. We all know that respiratory viruses like coronavirus and influenza worsen within the winter, so I’m undoubtedly anxious. We aren’t out of the woods.”
In case you are planning to journey for the vacations, Mayo Clinic created a map that forecasts COVID-19 hotspots. You may search by date, by state, and by county and make journey choices accordingly.
“It helps to know if there are elevated variety of instances in that state to ensure you’re taking additional precautions or possibly not going,” Virk stated. “We’re not asking folks to not meet this 12 months, as we did final 12 months, however I feel folks needs to be cautious about giant gatherings.”
5 EYEWITNESS Information requested the Minnesota Division of Well being if it plans to replace its Thanksgiving steering, given the present COVID-19 numbers in Minnesota. A spokesperson supplied this assertion:
“The suggestions mentioned final week in the course of the briefing and which might be on our web site stay our steering for the upcoming holidays. It’s critically essential that Minnesotans take this steering to coronary heart and take steps to guard themselves and their households and preserve their gatherings protected. When the virus is circulating as extensively in our communities as it’s and with the Delta variant as transmissible as it’s, we’re involved about potential will increase in instances anytime folks collect in bigger teams, in shut contact with each other for longer durations of time, particularly if they’re unvaccinated. To a big extent, nonetheless, what occurs after the vacations is determined by what Minnesotans do in the course of the holidays to restrict the unfold of the illness.”
