Halloween and Thanksgiving Safety Tips During the Pandemic (Giveaway ends 10/10/2020)

 

With the holiday season fast approaching, I wanted to share recommendations on what is considered safe or risky during the pandemic from Dr. Bita Nasseri, a leading Mayo Clinic trained physician who has been practicing for over twenty years in Los Angeles and a mother of three.

HALLOWEEN

• Keeping children and chaperones six feet apart is very difficult during trick-or-treating through the neighborhoods. The concept of keeping your crowd in a bubble or a pod is completely jeopardized by exposure to larger groups from your neighborhood.
• Ideally you don’t want person to person handling of Halloween candies. Even if there is a way of automatically dispensing candies or using a candy machine, there is always a risk of exposure to candy wraps that can host unwanted germs for up to 72 hours. If you are celebrating Halloween with your pod, assign a parent to hand out candies and traffic control using gloves.
• October is well into the fall cold and flu season. Not only do we not want the spread of Covid, we also don’t want the spread of the flu and cross reactivity of signs and symptoms.
• Let’s keep it simple and clean this year.  Protect yourself and your family and therefore protect others. Make it fun and build candy trick or treating stations throughout your home. Express your love of the holiday by recreating the experience of trick-or-treating within your close circle.

THANKSGIVING 

• If you can, hosting an event outside with a covered patio or heaters is best, but if it must be indoors, choose the largest room in the house or the family room. Also, try to limit the social time indoors vs outside on the patio, lawn, etc.
• To minimize airborne (breath) exposure, put one or two air filters in the room or have the windows open.
• Arrange seats allowing for 2-3 feet at minimum between guests.  Place children further away from your beloved elders. You can also arrange multiple tables so elders can be separated and distanced from larger groups and crowds.
• A simple solution to minimize food exposure is to have one person serving and handling the food and desserts.
• Have people privately do a Covid symptom checklist to make sure that they don’t have fever, cough, chills, body aches, pink eye, upset stomach, recent change in taste or smell, or a newly runny nose. Given the opportunity, most loved ones will make the wise decision not to expose their family and friends if they have a moment to review the checklist prior to coming to the dinner.
• Another thought is to have guests wear face masks for greeting, boisterous conversation, and for toasts, as that amplifies the aerosols from our lungs, and to remove face masks only while eating.

Even during the holidays, its very important to make sure you are protected all all times. I personally never leave my home without my mask, and a couple of back-up masks just in case. I also have several hand sanitizers in my car and on my purse, as well as plastic gloves.

If you are looking for a great source of personal protection equipment (otherwise known as PPE), check out the company Go Care.

Go Care offers PPE to-go kits for consumers, workers, at-risk individuals and generally anyone who wants protection while remaining active in their daily lives.

For more information, visit GetGoCare.com.

Go Care would like to give a lucky reader a special Get Go Care PPE prize package. 

This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only and will end on October 10, 2020. The winner will be chosen from all eligible entries using a random number generator. The winner will be contacted via email and will have three days to reply, or a new winner will be chosen in their place.

To enter, please comment on this post and tell me who you would give this prize package to, and why? It’s OK if you want to say “yourself,” as long as you can tell me why.

Kimberly