Pressed for guidelines about what Thanksgiving gatherings should look like this year, Gov. Phil Scott steered clear of putting the kibosh on traditional Thanksgiving gatherings. Instead, he repeated what he’s been saying for seven months now: Follow the rules regarding quarantines, keep gathering sizes small, and wear a mask.
Health Commissioner Mark Levine on Friday reminded Vermonters to continue doing what they have been doing since March, despite the fatigue that he sees setting in. Avoiding large gatherings, even though they are a staple of the holidays, is safer, Levine said.
“We can also forgo travel, that’s a really hard holiday message to deliver,” he said. “But since we’re surrounded by mainly red and yellow counties, that may just not be worth the risk,” he said of the state’s travel map, which identifies counties with low enough infection rates to make quarantine unnecessary.
“But if Vermonters do leave the state, make sure to follow our quarantine rules,” he said. “If visitors come into your home for the holidays for most places in the region, or your college student returns from the fall semester from a faraway state, they too must quarantine.”
Although Vermont’s Covid-19 case counts and positivity rates are among the lowest in the country, the infection rate is growing in Vermont, as it is nationally. Modeling released this week shows Vermont could see as many as 50 new cases a day by mid-November, Scott said at his regular Covid-19 briefing Friday.
The state has the testing and contact tracing ability to manage the rise in cases, said Scott.
“But we also need the help of all of you to mitigate this,” said Scott in his wide-ranging news briefing.
Thanksgiving planning affects an enormous swathe of the U.S. population. In normal years, Thanksgiving is typically seen as the busiest travel period of the year, and it’s often a busy season for lodging and restaurant owners as well.
A glimpse at lodging reservations shows that out-of-staters who typically visit for Thanksgiving in Vermont have made alternate plans this year, or are heeding public officials’ advice to stay home on the holiday.
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Thanksgiving bookings typically fill the 11-room Four Chimneys Inn in Bennington, said co-owner Lynn Green on Friday. This year, the inn only has three reservations, said Green.
“With the recent national surge in Covid cases, the question is whether those rooms will eventually fill or not,” Green said. She added that while guests have said they feel safe at the inn, the travel map limits who can make the trip into the state.
“Of the guests who are booked for this year, we are seeing couples with grown children who will not be able to see their families this year,” she said. “So they are making their own special Thanksgiving plans – just the two of them.”
Brian Maggiotto, general manager at the Inn at Manchester, said his regular annual Thanksgiving guests are starting to cancel their reservations this year. He has also received enquiries from local parents whose college students are returning at Thanksgiving and who need a place to quarantine for two weeks.
“Unfortunately we have not accepted those,” said Maggiotto.
Cutting back on Thanksgiving get-togethers will affect a lot of local individuals who traditionally have gathered at the Lilac Inn Brandon in a 30-person mixture of family, friends and strangers, said owner Shelly Sawyer. Sawyer, whose husband died in March, said for years she has invited local people who didn’t have anywhere else to go. This year she invited a woman from Seattle who recently moved in next door.
This year, she’s hoping that many of them can still make it, but a number of her family members out of state have opted to stay away. She’s waiting to see what happens in the next few weeks before she makes firm plans, but she thinks she can still accommodate some of her family, friends and neighbors by putting distancing measures in place.
“I hope it doesn’t come down to being no Thanksgiving,” Sawyer said.
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October 31, 2020 at 05:11AM
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Officials recommend staying the course during holiday season - vtdigger.org
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