Colorado Democrat Governor Jared Polis said during a press conference on Friday that if families want to spend Thanksgiving together, they should quarantine for two weeks prior to the holiday so that they won’t be “bringing a loaded pistol for grandma’s head.”
“As the holiday season approaches, we continue urging Coloradans the best way to keep safe is to only interact with members of your own household. The safest and best option, of course, is to have Thanksgiving with your household,” Polis began. “I understand many want to have Thanksgiving with additional households. If you do want to do that, the safest way to do that is to quarantine for two weeks before Thanksgiving. That means starting quarantining today, right?”
Polis talked about what he claimed the odds were of someone at a Thanksgiving dinner having the coronavirus and likened it to playing Russian roulette.
Polis also floated the idea that people should perhaps not invite family members to their Thanksgiving dinners who thought that the pandemic was “a hoax.”
“Now, you don’t control – I get family dynamics, right? You don’t control the decision-making process of everybody at your Thanksgiving table. There’s 11 people, you might have that cousin or uncle that doesn’t believe in coronavirus, that thinks it’s a hoax,” he said. “Your family dynamic may allow that person not to be invited or they may have to be at the table, but even if 10 of the 11 self-quarantine before they get there and 1 doesn’t, you’ve reduced the odds of bringing COVID to Thanksgiving from 1-in-10 to 1-in-100, which, again, it’s not fun to play Russian roulette in 1-in-100 chances the bullet’s in the chamber, but it’s a heck of a lot better than playing Russian roulette with a bullet in 1 of 10 chambers.”
A few moments later, Polis added: “But for families that do want to get together, and the family dynamic really requires that, and that’s something you want to enjoy, the more family members that make that decision to self-quarantine, the more likely it is that you’re not bringing a loaded pistol for grandma’s head and, uh, that’s where we are.”
WATCH:
Colorado Democrat Governor Jared Polis says if you don’t quarantine before going to Thanksgiving dinner, you might kill grandma: “The more family members that make that decision to self-quarantine the more likely it is that you’re not bringing a loaded pistol for grandma’s head.” pic.twitter.com/t22rVQerTN
— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) November 15, 2020
TRANSCRIPT:
JARED POLIS, GOVERNOR OF COLORADO: As the holiday season approaches, we continue urging Coloradans the best way to keep safe is to only interact with members of your own household. The safest and best option, of course, is to have Thanksgiving with your household.
I understand many want to have Thanksgiving with additional households. If you do want to do that, the safest way to do that is to quarantine for two weeks before Thanksgiving. That means starting quarantining today, right? If you are going to an intergenerational Thanksgiving with grandma and grandpa or aunt and uncle or cousins, uh, it’s important to do that today.
And just, again, walking through those odds that we talked about, it’s 1-in-110, 11 people at your thanksgiving, that’s a 10 percent chance playing Russian roulette that one of them is contagious in a typical Thanksgiving dinner that would very likely spread from one person to 8 or 9 or 10 out of 11. I mean, this indoor, intimate contact around a table. So, if one person has it, you’re all going to have it.
Now, you don’t control – I get family dynamics, right? You don’t control the decision-making process of everybody at your Thanksgiving table. There’s 11 people, you might have that cousin or uncle that doesn’t believe in coronavirus, that thinks it’s a hoax. Your family dynamic may allow that person not to be invited or they may have to be at the table, but even if 10 of the 11 self-quarantine before they get there and 1 doesn’t, you’ve reduced the odds of bringing COVID to Thanksgiving from 1-in-10 to 1-in-100, which, again, it’s not fun to play Russian roulette in 1-in-100 chances the bullet’s in the chamber, but it’s a heck of a lot better than playing Russian roulette with a bullet in 1 of 10 chambers.
So, however many people can self-quarantine – yourself, your loved ones, your cousins, how can you urge them to do it? This is really important to keep your intergenerational family safe. And again, many families, including ours, are just celebrating Thanksgiving this year with our nuclear family, as much as I would love to see my parents, they are both in a very high at-risk group at 76 and my mom having some respiratory conditions and, of course we’re going to visit with them virtually for Thanksgiving and we can’t wait till it’s safe to see them again.
But for families that do want to get together, and the family dynamic really requires that, and that’s something you want to enjoy, the more family members that make that decision to self-quarantine, the more likely it is that you’re not bringing a loaded pistol for grandma’s head and, uh, that’s where we are.