As the Thanksgiving holiday week begins, New York officials are recommending that dinners and gatherings with family and friends be limited or even canceled to prevent a further rise in COVID-19 transmission.
New York’s rate of the virus has been creeping up all fall, though the state is still at a significantly lower rate than most of the rest of the nation. 2.74% of all tests were positive on Saturday, and 30 people died of the disease, and 2562 were in the hospital.
Governor Andrew Cuomo said the weeks between now and January 2 are a “dangerous period” for New Yorkers as pressure to participate in social interactions intensifies during the holiday season.
Cuomo, who has already limited indoor gatherings to 10 people or fewer, said we’ll know by early December whether or not New Yorkers were careful over the Thanksgiving holiday and took precautions like mask wearing and safe social distancing.
“People get infected, you need an incubation period for the virus, they then start to get sick, they then start to show up at the hospital,” Cuomo said. "So, December 1-December 10 you'll see the results of Thanksgiving weekend."
The governor said the winter holidays — Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s — are usually a period of “hyper social activity” and will be another trigger point for spread of the virus. He said safe behaviors can mean all the difference between a low or moderate trajectory of the virus, and a “terrible spike,” which he said will lead to more hospitalizations and deaths.
“I would not be shocked if they said on January 10, January 15 we're up at 7, 8, 9, 10 percent. That could very easily happen if we are irresponsible. It could even be higher if we're irresponsible,” Cuomo said. “It's purely a function of what we do.”
He said even though two major pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer and Moderna, are on track to produce doses of a reliable vaccine, it will at first be limited to the most vulnerable groups, and it will be at least another six months before enough people receive the vaccine to achieve “critical mass” and allow normal life to resume. And he said a future vaccine can’t do anything about rising rates of the virus right now.
Cuomo also warned that many regions of the state are headed toward more economic restrictions in the coming days, including portions of Manhattan, Staten Island, Long Island and Rochester and Syracuse, as the positivity rates in those regions are rising. But the governor did not declare any new zones or intensify any existing ones on Sunday.
