A Wednesday morning CBS panel suggested that holiday hosts could ease some of the awkwardness of forcing their Thanksgiving guests to submit to COVID testing by turning their garages into a pre-party staging area complete with drinks and hors d’oeuvres.
CBS segment on #Thanksgiving suggests families have drinks and “hors d’oeuvres in the garage” while everyone takes a Covid rapid test and wait for the results before going inside: “You can make it playful, make it fun, and then be able to enjoy the holiday.” pic.twitter.com/U6q0PLPC4E
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 24, 2021
Former Detroit Lion Nate Burleson broached the subject, saying, “It might be a difficult conversation, before people step into your house, to say, ‘Whoa, wait a minute. Where’s your card? What’s your status?’ before you walk into my home.”
“This is tough,” psychologist Lisa Damour agreed. “Because people are all over the map on this, but they’re also all over the map with their risk tolerance. But the rapid tests have made this a lot easier, because whatever people’s vaccination status is, we can actually confirm safety on the spot.”
“So if it feels like it’s going to be weird, maybe make it kind of fun. Say we’re going to start with hors d’oeuvres in the garage,” she continued, prompting laughter from the hosts. “You know, we’ll have drinks, we’ll do our rapid tests and then come on in, right? You can make it playful, make it fun, and then be able to enjoy the holiday because you’re not worried about safety.”
Damour was far from the only one recommending rapid tests prior to family gatherings.
ER Doctor Megan Ranney suggested that guests bring their own Rapid Antigen Test — and one for another guest — as a hostess gift, tweeting, “Going to a holiday get-together? Here’s the perfect host gift: A beverage of choice. And a box of rapid antigen tests — one for you, one for another guest ($14 for 2! Cheaper than a good bottle of wine, and way safer).”
Dr. Celine Gounder took things a step further, advising people to take a number of steps to ensure safety over the Thanksgiving holiday.
“Thanksgiving 🦃 COVID safety tips,” she tweeted.”Vaccination, vaccination, vaccination, rapid test at least every other day, ventilation, HEPA air filters, N95, KN95/KF95 masks. Think of ’em as your winter ❄️⛄️ layers.”
1/ Thanksgiving 🦃 COVID safety tips:
– Vaccination, vaccination, vaccination
– Rapid test at least every other day
– Ventilation, HEPA air filters
– N95, KN95/KF95 masks
Think of ’em as your winter ❄️⛄️ layers.with @MSNBC‘s @ChrisJansing pic.twitter.com/H0kdDEAkxF
— Céline Gounder, MD, ScM, FIDSA (@celinegounder) November 24, 2021
A New York Times op-ed offered other suggestions, including keeping any children who were not fully vaccinated away from the older adults — even if they were fully vaccinated — and having the kids “eat quickly” and then put their masks back on to avoid prolonged exposure.
A Fox News panel mocked the op-ed during a Tuesday broadcast of “Outnumbered,” as The Daily Wire previously reported:
“When you slave over all that food you don’t want your kids sloughing it down, you want your kids to take their bite slowly and enjoyed. The hard labor that my mother will be putting in towards our Thanksgiving feast since I don’t cook, I wouldn’t do that to my mom,” [Julie] Banderas said.
“I thought it was parody,” [Kayleigh] McEnany continued, noting that the subtitle for that particular questions was, ‘Help, the kids are coming inside.’ I mean, amazing.”
“You can’t make this up. Truth is stranger than fiction nowadays. A New York Times headline is the same as The Onion headlines, you can’t tell them apart,” Compagno added, arguing that the real tragedy was that instead of focusing on family and giving thanks, people were resorting to writing to newspapers for advice on what they could do to keep their families safe and healthy.
“Why isn’t the government answering the question? I thought Dr. Fauci had all the answers,” she said.