This was published 3 years ago
'Test before turkey' not enough to avoid Thanksgiving 'perfect storm'
Washington: Thanksgiving is a seriously big deal for Emily Smith. The 37-year-old usually starts planning her menu a month in advance and begins cooking a week before the big day. As well as the obligatory turkey, she likes to experiment with less traditional dishes such as harissa sweet potatoes, shiitake gravy and "crack pie" - the indulgent oatmeal and brown sugar dessert invented by celebrity chef Christina Tosi.
Smith and her husband are usually joined at their home in Washington, DC, by about eight family members who fly in from Illinois and Michigan and stay for up to a week.
Epidemiologist and culinary enthusiast Emily Smith has scaled back her Thanksgiving plans because of the coronavirus pandemic. Credit: Evelyn Hockstein
As well as a passionate home cook, Smith is an epidemiologist at George Washington University. Since March, she has managed COVID101, a website where health experts answer people’s questions about the virus such as "When should you wear gloves?", "Can I go trick-or-treating?" and "Should I change my Thanksgiving plans?"
Her answer to the final question is clear: people should limit their Thanksgiving guest list to those they live with. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the nation's top public health bodies, released the same official advice last week.
Usually a period of gratitude and celebration, this year's Thanksgiving is a time of high anxiety. Coronavirus infections are surging: the country is recording an average 170,000 new cases a day as well as 1500 daily deaths. Thanksgiving, which will be celebrated on Friday (AEDT), will almost certainly push those numbers even higher, a prospect that is alarming public health experts.
"It’s a time when we get together with many people, including people that aren’t part of our regular households," Smith says.
"You have 10 people crammed into the kitchen, people sitting side-by-side at the dinner table for hours. All these things come together to create a perfect storm where it’s very high-risk to go ahead with a normal Thanksgiving."
Reflecting on the likely spike of post-holiday infections, Smith says: "I’m really worried and my colleagues are too. We’ve felt sick about it for weeks."
Smith says she's concerned people are putting too much faith in getting a negative COVID test before visiting their family — an approach that has been nicknamed "test before turkey". Testing only goes so far, given people could pick up the virus during their travels, or if they contracted it too recently to record a positive test.
Instead of cooking for 10 people as she normally would, this year Smith is preparing a meal for two: just herself and her husband. With COVID cases especially high in the Midwest, where her relatives live, her family decided it was simply too risky to gather this year.
More than 1 million passengers flew through US airports just last Friday, as families prepare to reunite for Thanksgiving despite the virus risks. Credit: Bloomberg
But many Americans aren't being so cautious. More than 3 million passengers have boarded flights in the past three days. On Monday (AEDT) US airports recorded their busiest day since the pandemic began.
Despite the rising COVID-19 numbers, there's a pervasive sense of coronavirus fatigue across the country. Many Americans are desperate to maintain a sense of normality and reconnect with family members they haven't seen for months. This has caused tension in families where some members want to prioritise slowing the spread of the virus while others want to keep their usual traditions alive.
When The Sacramento Bee, a newspaper in California, asked its readers how they were celebrating Thanksgiving this year, many responded that they were scaling back or cancelling their plans. But others said they were pressing ahead as normal.
"Going to Idaho for a big family get-together! Woo-hoo!" said one reader. "We are celebrating like we always have," said another.
Several readers noted that California Governor Gavin Newsom had recently attended a dinner with about a dozen people at a ritzy Napa Valley restaurant. "I’m gonna do what our governor does ... continue on with my life and go to dinner with friends and family," one reader said.
Like mask wearing, Thanksgiving has become another front in the country's partisan left- and right-wing culture wars. Senior Republican politicians have suggested that advising Americans not to visit their families for the holiday represents an attack on freedom.
"Don’t lock down the country," Republican congressman Jim Jordan recently tweeted. "Don’t impose curfews. Don’t close schools. Let Americans decide for themselves. And celebrate Thanksgiving."
Republican Senator Ted Cruz tweeted an image of a turkey under the slogan: "Come and take it." Just days later National Guard troops were dispatched to El Paso, in southern Texas, to help the city's morgues cope with the overflowing number of coronavirus victims.
In a low-key ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, President Donald Trump skipped his usual jokey routine for the annual turkey pardon and instead gave "thanks for the vaccines and therapies that will soon end the pandemic".
He didn't mention the surge of infections, but wished his masked guests a happy and healthy holiday, took no questions and left immediately after pardoning a pair of birds, Corn and Cob.
Trump used last year’s pardon to joke about impeachment and, in 2018, kidded that one of the turkeys was contesting the election.
"This was a fair election," the President said two years ago. "Unfortunately, Carrots refused to concede and demanded a recount, and we’re still fighting with Carrots. But I will tell you, we’ve come to a conclusion. Carrots. I’m sorry to tell you, the result did not change. That’s too bad for Carrots."
US President Donald Trump pardons a Thanksgiving turkey, Corn, during a ceremony with first lady Melania Trump in the Rose Garden of the White House on Tuesday.Credit: Bloomberg
Meanwhile Jared Polis, the Democratic Governor of Colorado, said holding large gatherings with people who had not self-quarantined was like "bringing a pistol to grandma's head".
Smith says she understands how difficult the decision has been for many people. "I've spent the last 10 months tracking the pandemic and it still makes me sad not to have a normal Thanksgiving," she says. "We’re craving comfort."
In order to maintain a sense of connection, she and her husband will speak to their family members on Zoom and play online games together on the day.
With her guest list reduced to two, Smith had hoped to secure a smaller-than-usual turkey. But many people had the same idea: there has been an unprecedented boom in demand for small turkeys this year. So Smith is preparing a 5.5 kilogram turkey that feeds 12 people, the smallest she could find.
"I see a lot of turkey tacos and turkey risotto in our future," she says.