Health Experts Warn of Tough Holiday Season for Seniors

The Hill reports that health experts are warning that the holiday season threatens to elevate the risk of COVID-19 to older Americans. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that more than 1 million coronavirus cases have been reported since Nov. 23, despite recommendations that people skip traveling for Thanksgiving and limit celebrations to members of their household. Yet many Americans are still holding family gatherings outside of those guidelines with people in the high-risk 65-and-up demographic. "I anticipate that we'll see in the next two weeks after Thanksgiving an even higher spike in cases across the country because people are gathering and traveling," said Mariah Robertson at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. "We'll see something similar near the Christmas holiday for similar reasons." University of North Carolina School of Medicine Professor Christine E. Kistler added that even mitigation efforts like getting screened prior to holiday travel may not work, as people may catch the virus a few hours beforehand, but the test will not register that they have COVID-19. Robertson acknowledged that while "social isolation is bad for anyone . . . we still need to find ways to connect during these really important holidays" via substitutes like virtual meetings or house drive-by greetings.