Celebrate Thanksgiving safely to prevent Covid spread: Keep our students in school —
The Fayette County School System is asking for increased health precautions this holiday week so that schools aren’t forced to shut down due to increased Covid-19 cases.
Here’s what system Public Information Officer Melinda Berry-Dreisbach says the system is asking of parents:
“Holidays are one of the ways we celebrate the people and events that we care about. Each holiday is special and important, but holidays may need to look different this year.
“Fayette County Public Schools is strongly encouraging families and residents to choose lower risk Thanksgiving activities to reduce the likelihood of Covid-19 outbreaks in schools so that students can continue to have in-person learning.
“We have seen that having in-person learning provides a significant benefit for the academic, social, emotional, and physical wellbeing of our students and families, but sustaining it could be in jeopardy if precautions are not taken this Thanksgiving holiday.
“Covid-19 can easily spread from one person to another during traditional holiday activities where we gather for shared meals or rituals. There are many alternative options to celebrate Thanksgiving while also maintaining a lower level of risk. The school system highly recommends these Thanksgiving activities, which have been identified as lower risk by the CDC:
“· Having a small dinner with only people who live in your household
“· Preparing traditional family recipes for family and neighbors, and using contactless delivery to share them
“· Sharing recipes with friends and family and hosting a virtual dinner
“· Shopping online, rather than in person, the day after Thanksgiving or the next Monday
“· Watching sports events, parades and movies from home
“It is essential that we all work together to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 this holiday with the same determination that allowed us to successfully open our schools this fall. We all must follow the necessary protocols when out in public that have worked to provide a safe environment in our schools: wear a face covering, watch your distance, wash your hands, and avoid going out in public or being around others if you are sick.
“Our school families, community members, and you are important to us as we support health and safety precautions both within and outside of school. Thank you for your continuous support, flexibility, and demonstrated resilience during this unprecedented school year,” Berry-Dreisbach said.
Death by Cytokine storm is not pleasant. Seeing a love one drowning as their lungs fill with “crud” is heartbreaking. Wear the damn mask and observe establish protocols . Don’t be a Gavin Newsom. (eyes rolling)
Wishing everyone a very happy and safe Thanksgiving!
Thanks Mike. To you the same.
Advice from someone with a hyphenated last name is always unwelcome at our house. Then again so are infectious diseases that can lead to death in certain age groups – like mine.
I will have immediate family which is simply one other household, we will keep distance (8 to 10 feet – even the grandkids) and wear masks when in the kitchen with others. You or anyone else can do what they want and I thank you for not invading my space and I will certainly not invade yours. Sort of a Golden Rule kind of thing.
Since it is pretty obvious no one actually knows for sure how to handle this situation, let’s start with letting people decide themselves how to deal with it in space that they actually control. This means your own home like I did (see above). It also means if someone has a business they get to make the rules. Makes sense that they should have a sign explaining the rules then you or I could decide to go in or not. Bars, big box stores, hair stylists, churches, schools should be under the control of the people actually responsible.
Politicians like mayors or governors don’t control the city or the state and shouldn’t be allowed to pretend they do. They control city hall, government buildings and some parks, beaches and statues. Stick to that and let the rest of us deal with our own space. Somebody is bound to play the public health card and that’s fair, but telling me how to handle Thanksgiving in my own home is not.
The Americans who died in WWII were heroes who helped save the world. They would know that wearing a mask is appropriate and would do it because it helps others stay safe. Those heroes and the few still alive don’t need to be micro-managed, nor do the rest of us.
Robert W. Morgan, opinions from uniformed, ignorant, misogynists are unwelcome at our house. There are many reasons why someone (a woman), might have an hyphenated last name. Our daughter, a doctor of molecular biology, was married several months after presenting her thesis and earning her PHD. In the sciences, as I’m sure many other professions, your name on published papers, research, etc… is very important to your career. Her husband, also a doctor, his family and ours all understood why it was important for her to keep her maiden name. Many of her colleagues don’t take their husbands name at all, is that your preference? I hope you and your family had a happy and safe holiday.
Nope will have my thanksgiving with a full house! Don’t tell me who I can and cannot have at my house!
To quote that Southern sage, Forest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
Maybe you’ll be lucky, or maybe you’ll kill your grandmother. One thing is certain, like your orange god, you’ll NEVER take any personal responsibility for your careless actions. Good luck!
BOOM ROASTED
– Micheal Scott
A helping of personal responsibility, mixed with tempered judgmental suggestions, and all without egotistical assumptions would make this Thanksgiving much more meaningful. Just saying.
No thanks, not going to lose my freedoms. I am going to enjoy my family and friends.
It is ironic that such an egocentric poster who demonstrates profound ignorance of basic biological science chose such an incongruous moniker.
Your freedom to what? Your freedom to go out and possibly get infected by a virus that has killed 250,000 Americans, that’s half as many people died in World War Two. Let’s think about that. We have lost half as many people in 9 months as we did in 2 years of war. You need to listen to the advice of scientists, not some people on Facebook. You can have Thanksgiving next year when this is all over, and even share some stories about how you stayed home for your family and the safety of others!
So what about the flu? cancer? Smoking? Those kill thousands of people all over the word and we don’t tell people not to have thanksgiving or gathering. Move on with your dictatorship ideas. Hope you have a great thanksgiving by yourself!
Thank you, I will. Smoking isn’t contagious, neither is cancer. We should probably tell people if they have the flu to stay home and not come to thanksgiving. The thing with COVID is you can be contagious before you show symptoms, unlike most other viruses which you only become contagious after you show symptoms. This means that you could have a nice thanksgiving dinner and feel fine, but you might have been contagious the whole time and how your whole family is infected. For the sake of argument, I’m going to assume there’s 10 people at your thanksgiving dinner. A 99% survival rate means that there’s a 10% one of the people at the table dies. This will only increase as hospitals get overwhelmed as they already are in some rural states out west.
Second smoking? We’re you breath in the smoke of someone smoking near you? Not contagious? Tanning beds can cause skin cancer but we still let them operate? Smoking causes lung cancer and we let people smoke.. alcohol causes liver issues.. could go on.. but we still allow them because it’s people choice to do it!
The fact is let people make their own decisions! Don’t decide the life of others! You could die tomorrow in a car crash wearing your seat belt and all the safety features but still a chance you will die! Thanksgiving or any gathering… you could get sick of food poisoning from back turkey.. should we start banning turkeys just in case now? No you take that chance every day in life!! You could die at any point from anything so don’t let some idiots tell you what you can or cannot do!!!
That’s the issue now!! Not my job to tell people how to live their life and who they can and cannot see!!
Just because I get second smoke from someone doesn’t make me produce second hand smoke. You’re not wrong we do let people make their own decisions, but we label and tax tobacco and alcohol and make smokers go outside.
It’s about risk, the chance of getting food poisoning from properly cooked turkey is near zero, and the risk of dying of food poisoning is low. The chance of getting COVID is pretty high, and the chances of dying from it is a lot higher than from food poisoning.
We can’t lock ourselves in our houses and never leave because it’s the lowest risk way to live.
Cars are dangerous, which is why I’ve been trying to push PTC to design safer streets. Slow down cars, encourage people to take golf carts places, etc.
How many people have died of food poisoning from turkeys in the past year? 1 maybe? How many have died of COVID? 250,000+ people.
It’s also about familial and communal responsibility, someone binge drinking and giving themselves alcohol poisoning isn’t going to give the rest of the people at thanksgiving alcohol poisoning the way someone with COVID could.
This isn’t a mandate or legally binding thing. It’s just the government encouraging us to not do stupid stuff, it’s like those dumb anti-smoking ads.
Well, the Flu is different from the Coronavirus, this has been proven by scientists, plus the Flu does not kill 250,000 Americans every year. You might want to get your facts straight.
Well now norm, the flu did kill 130,000 last year, so it is not insignificant. Strangely no flu deaths this year as they have been rolled into the Corona numbers. I am told some heart attacks, pneumonia and stroke deaths even get the Coronavirus tag.
Makes you wonder if there is a financial or political incentive to pump up the virus numbers. I’m just wondering, I don’t really know. Probably someone who works at a hospital knows.
’76 is conflating personal risks one assumes for himself with risks one imposes upon others. A correct analogy is driving. ’76 may choose to forego seat belt usage and assume risks associated with his own personal injury should he crash. However, when ’76 disregards stop signs because it limits his freedom for rapid movement, he now risks injury to everyone else on the road.
Now, will someone who speaks the “Trumpish” language translate this elementary concept so even ’76 can understand it. Thank you.