CDC guidelines recommend avoiding trick-or-treating during Halloween
The Centers for Disease Control has advised against door-to-door trick-or-treating, attending crowded and indoor parties and wearing costume masks this Halloween to prevent the spread of covid-19.
The health agency released new guidelines this week that outlined several traditional Halloween activities that could be high-risk for spreading viruses and offered alternate ideas to celebrate the holiday.
“Many traditional Halloween activities can be high-risk for spreading viruses,” the CDC said in a statement. “There are several safer, alternative ways to participate in Halloween. If you may have covid-19 or you may have been exposed to someone with covid-19, you should not participate in in-person Halloween festivities and should not give out candy to trick-or-treaters.”
Even trunk-or-treating, “where treats are handed out from trunks of cars lined up in large parking lots” and indoor parties or haunted houses are among the riskiest Halloween activities when it comes to preventing the spread of covid-19, the CDC claims.
Others to be avoided include hayrides or tractor rides with others, visiting fall festivals in other communities and indoor haunted houses where people will be crowded and screaming, which could spray infectious particles.
CHIME IN: Will you still allow your kids to trick or treat? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has now officially discouraged trick-or-treating in 2020: https://t.co/dr6OJRFmRj pic.twitter.com/6SxvO1zFji
— WISN 12 NEWS (@WISN12News) September 22, 2020
Tomorrow the CDC will issue a correction, "This Halloween, party and booze at your indoor costume party like you've never partied or boozed before." https://t.co/kTSFH6QlMS
— Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) September 22, 2020
The CDC is urging against Halloween trick-or-treating — even as Trump says we’ve turned a corner and kids “almost immune” to coronavirus and it’s not really affecting “anybody.”
— Michelangelo Signorile, subscribe to my newsletter (@MSignorile) September 22, 2020
Bret Gibson is a TribLive digital producer. A South Hills resident, he started working for the Trib in 1998. He can be reached at bgibson@triblive.com.
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