The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday advised the public against traveling for Thanksgiving during its first briefing since August as the country reaches the grim milestone of 250,000 fatalities from COVID-19.
During a media telebriefing on Thursday, Dr. Henry Walke, CDC’s COVID-19 incident manager, urged the public to recognize that there is “no more important time than now” to strictly adhere to mitigation measures in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Walke stressed the importance of “redoubling our efforts” to practice social distancing, hand washing and wearing a mask.
Walke then issued a strong advisory against traveling for Thanksgiving.
“CDC is recommending against travel during the Thanksgiving period,” Walke said. “For Americans who decide to travel, CDC recommends doing so as safely as possible by following the same recommendations for everyday living.”
Walke’s comments advising against Thanksgiving travel come amid President Trump going AWOL as he bunkers very strongly in the White House while waging legal battles contesting the legitimacy of President-elect Joe Biden’s win. Trump has yet to concede, which has already stalled Biden’s formal transition process. The sitting president also has not made any public statements regarding the country crossing the grim threshold of more than 250,000 COVID-19 fatalities on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary of health who leads the government’s COVID testing efforts, sounded the alarm that the country is in an “absolutely dangerous situation” as COVID-19 cases continue surging ahead of the holiday season.
“Right now, we are in an absolutely dangerous situation that we have to take with the utmost seriousness,” Giroir said. “This is not crying wolf. This is the worst rate of rise in cases that we’ve seen in the pandemic in the United States and right now there’s no sign of flattening.”
SINCE AUGUST!!! Says it all.
Oh, come on, TPM. The “CDC Cancels Thanksgiving.” Really. They did no such thing.
You can give thanks for the plague from anywhere. They simply advise that you don’t do it together.
Mildly off topic and not really important but, as a couple with zero family now, we do not do full turkeys. A lot of work and a lot of excess. Instead we look for Turkey Breast or Legs to keep things compact. This year, none of the different offerings are in the grocer. Just whole birds. I am trying to figure out why the pandemic or some other reason created this situation.
People are going to ignore this, people are going to gather in big groups, and people are going to die. The death rate will likely continue to increase until Trump leaves office, simply because there is no leadership to push back against the idiots who think wearing a mask interferes with their FREEDOM!!! They are going to kill a lot of people…if there was justice in the world they would die as well.
When Biden takes over, we will finally have competent leadership pushing scientifically based policies to respond to the pandemic. Things will improve…we will still have to assholes, but they will be more isolated because real information constantly pouring out of the government will help fight against the nonsense. And, vaccine distribution will also cut down on the virus’ spread. It may take a year, but we’ll get back to normal…and, the improvement should be clear in time for the 2022 election, as will th inability of the Republicans to protect Americans. It should make it easy to tie the economic failures to them, and that plush health care should help Democrats win some Senate seats. It’s what they need to focus on, as it’s the only way to break the Republican’s death grip on the nation.
“I demand my G-d given right as an American to celebrate Gluttony/Native-American Genocide/Puritan Theocracy/Super-Spreading Patricide without CDC warnings!!!”
(Or something.)