This year’s recommendations for Halloween are much different than last year’s. The CDC updated its guidelines for holiday celebrations. The CDC encourages people to get vaccinated, attend outdoor events, and to wear a mask.
“I would say put on those costumes, stay outside, and enjoy your trick-or-treating,” Rochelle Walensky, MD, director of the CDC said on Fox News Sunday.
“It’s critically important that we gather, that we be together with family and friends during these holidays,” she said. “And we have the prevention strategies that we know work to be safe for those holidays.”
She also said the CDC is “very carefully” watching a mutated form of the Delta variant called “Delta plus.”
If you remember, last year, people were discouraged from trick-or-treating or from gatherings.
The CDC has released guidelines for Halloween festivities that are likely to continue this year’s disappointment.
CDC Categorizes Halloween Activities By Risk
As many expected, The Centers for Disease Control is playing the role of the “no fun” police by recommending against traditional door-to-door trick-or-treating.
Indoor parties, indoor haunted houses, and even “trunk-or-treating,” where candy and treats are handed out from the trunks of vehicles in parking lots, are among the riskiest of Halloween festivities.
Hay rides with people not in your household should be scrapped as well according to these federal bureaucrats.
As you can image, there are those who will happily go along with the guidelines and those who will go about business as usual:
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The CDC has categorized Halloween activities by risk – low, moderate, and high risk.
Low risk activities will feel more typical of what we are supposed to be doing during the pandemic. Participating in activities virtually such as costume parties or costume contests can bring people together without spreading the virus. Decorating your pumpkin either inside or outside if you maintain proper social distance should keep you safe. And of course decorating your house is a fun activity that is low risk.
Moderate risk activities include visiting pumpkin patches (with hand sanitizer). And attending outdoor costume parties where people still wear cloth masks and abide by 6 feet of social distance is also ok. This list also includes one-way trick-or-treating where people leave pre-packaged bags of treats outside their doors.
Having an outdoor Halloween movie night is also of moderate risk, as long as people stay six feet apart. The CDC also recommends staying father than six feet away at events where screaming is likely.
Traditional door-to-door trick-or-treating is labeled high risk along with traveling to a fall festival that is not in your community.
Ohio Man Makes Halloween Candy Chute
While it is up to communities if they want to enforce these guidelines, an Ohio man has come up with a creative solution. Andrew Beattie of Delhi made a candy shoot so he didn’t have to personally interact with the children who come to his door for candy on Halloween.
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Beattie is doing this not just for the kids but for himself as well. He has health issues and is taking precautions so he doesn’t get COVID-19. Using a shipping tube that he decorated will allow him to drop candy to kids as they stand at the foot of his porch steps.
My favorite story of the morning: an Ohio dad created a 6 foot candy chute so that kids in his neighborhood can still stop by & trick-or-treat safely, amid covid concerns. ?? pic.twitter.com/XUesAklCTX
— Lauren Adams (@WLKYLaurenAdams) September 19, 2020
“I’ve been wanting to do something similar to it for a while just to help people with mobility issues,” the Ohio man said. “And, again, like I said, with having an immune deficiency, myself, it’s a good idea especially that time of year when people are getting colds and things to have that little extra distance there. Just a little common sense.”
One good thing about Halloween happening during the pandemic, is that people are likely to wear masks with their costumes. So, even if the “fun police” are putting a damper on some activities, there are still some reasonable options to choose to enjoy the day.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to show this year’s new recommendations for Halloween.
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