COVID-19 Thanksgiving alert: ‘Don’t share air with anyone outside your immediate family’
Leading medical professionals shared one last word of caution Friday as the Thanksgiving holidays approach and COVID-19 is so widespread in Mississippi that it’s hard to tell where many people even became infected.
“Don’t share air with anyone outside your immediate family,” said Dr. Mark Horne, president of the Mississippi State Medical Association.
His remarks came at the end of a Facebook Live session where he and Dr. Claude Brunson, MSMA executive director, posed questions to State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs and state epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers.
Dobbs said that he wanted to go see his adult son in Washington for Thanksgiving. They haven’t seen one another in six months. But he canceled the trip.
The doctors agreed that extended families who get together over the holidays might share the unfortunate gift of COVID-19 and wind up planning funerals. By Friday, Mississippi had 140,429 cases of COVID-19 and 3,642 deaths.
The doctors, all of whom wore masks for the briefing, are disturbed by the number of cases in the state, rapid depletion of hospital beds and the lack of acceptance of masks as a preventative measure.
Public health advice: No Thanksgiving travel
Dobbs doesn’t understand why some people think wearing a mask is too big an imposition on their freedom.
“We have to walk around with our clothes on,” he said. “We don’t get mad every time we have to wear underwear.”
He said the biggest and most harmful myth has been that COVID-19 is “no big deal.” He mentioned hearing it from national and state politicians. And it might not be a big deal for some, he said, but for others, it will.
He pointed out that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended people not travel for Thanksgiving. He suggests that Mississippians educate themselves by reviewing all the data available on the State Health Department website.
“We have an entire sequences of denialists trying to minimize it,” Dobbs said. “ . . . The head-in-the-sand approach has got us where we are right now.”
Sharing a Thanksgiving meal with family members or friends from outside the immediate household would be dangerous, the doctors agreed. They predicted the holiday will end in tragedy for some families who insist on gathering.
“We’re not going to wear masks with our family,” Dobbs said. “Let’s just be honest.”
He said family contact is one of the most common ways COVID-19 is spreading.
“Now is the riskiest time we’ve seen for transmission during this whole pandemic,” Dobbs said.
