World watches U.S. with dread, disbelief as Thanksgiving arrives
Many Americans still choosing to visit family and friends for holiday
Foreign observers are watching with trepidation — and at times disbelief — as coronavirus cases surge across the United States, and scores of Americans are choosing to follow through with plans to visit family and friends for this week’s Thanksgiving holiday anyway.
It’s been a grueling year. Many have gone months without seeing their loved ones. Thanksgiving travel is down and many families are opting against their usual festivities. But as the pandemic drags on, with shorter days and chillier weather forcing more people indoors, the social isolation is becoming more difficult to bear.
Decisions over whether to gather have turned divisive, as experts warn that Thanksgiving includes the key ingredients — a shared, indoor meal and inter-household mixing — that could spark an even worse surge in cases in the coming weeks.
It’s a scenario that officials in other countries are trying to avert ahead of other upcoming holidays, such as Christmas and New Year’s.
“From Australia, this looks like a mindbogglingly dangerous chapter in the outof-control American COVID-19 story,” Ian Mackay, an associate professor of virology at the University of Queensland, wrote in an email. “Sadly, for some, this will be a Thanksgiving that is remembered for all the wrong reasons.”
Australia has returned to a large degree of normality in recent weeks, with mass sporting events and even the iconic Sydney Opera House reopening.
But it only did so after strict regional lockdowns and border closures.
Mackay compared large numbers of Americans traveling for Thanksgiving to China’s Lunar New Year celebrations in early 2020 that inadvertently helped spread the virus at a crucial early stage. In some ways, this might be worse.
“This time we all know where the virus is, we know how bad it can be, and we can be sure that this event will cause more sickness and some deaths,” Mackay said. The virus “will thrive among all the chances to trigger superspreading events among households and larger gatherings and parties.