COVID-19 (PART V). Thanksgiving during the Pandemic

We have a long-running Thanksgiving tradition that we would invite friends old and new to join us for Thanksgiving dinner and celebrate Thanksgiving together. We would also make a special effort to invite people who may not have a place to go for Thanksgiving. But given that we are still stuck in this Covid purgatory and the Covid numbers are breaking new records almost every day, this year we have told friends that we will have to forego our usual Thanksgiving gatherings for everyone’s health and safety.

I initially wrote a Part V for my COVID-19 article series back on Easter Sunday, 4/12, but never published it. I noted at that time that the total Covid cases in the US had exceeded 550K with number of deaths exceeding 22K. But the situation has been much worse since then. We now have exceeded 12 million cases and 265K deaths in the US. Sadly, a lot of this is preventable. Some basic ideas to prevent the spread of infectious disease were already mentioned in the Mosaic Law and in the Bible. And the word “quarantine” comes from “quarantena (forty days)" used by the Venetians to quarantine all incoming ships before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague. But we have been facing a deluge of disinformation, lots of insistence of “my way/right [or fill in the blank]” over basic public health common sense, and lots of wishful thinking and irresponsible behaviors which are no different from doing Russian roulette or drunk driving. As homo sapiens, it just seems we cannot learn from history and what we went through the past scourges of infectious diseases such as polio, bubonic plagues, Spanish flu, etc.

But much has already been said and written on the ongoing pandemic. And there is now finally hope at the end of the dark tunnel. So, on this day of Thanksgiving, even though we could not invite friends over to celebrate Thanksgiving together, I will try to count the blessings in life and what I am thankful and grateful for in this challenging time.

• Our own family – While we have been busy with work and our two boys have been busy with school, we are doing a lot of the activities at home. Imagine if one were stuck with an unhappy or constantly squabbling family! None of that here, and we all have done our part to make things work as smoothly as possible.
• Our extended family and friends – The pandemic has brought us closer, even across long distance and time difference. We kept each other’s spirit up during this challenging time. There is always some good humor even in the darkest of times, and there is genuine love and care for each other. Thank you!
• Our teachers – My wife kept up her teaching at her university. And our kids’ school and teachers have been doing a superb job in keeping the classes going whether online or in some hybrid manner. Our two boys have been busier with their schoolwork than before!
• Our workplace team and partners – We didn’t just sit around and try to wait out the pandemic. We said let’s do whatever we can to help combat the Covid outbreak and we have made rapid progress in a very short time. I’m very proud of what we have done.
• All other people and companies working hard on Covid testing and therapeutics – lots of rapid and amazing progress in the field. There are now lots of tools for testing (but implementation and coordination are still very haphazard); we have new therapeutics which are already helping bring down the fatality rate significantly in hospitals and ICUs; and we have several new vaccines that are almost ready to go! Also, many thanks to all the volunteers who participated in the vaccine studies (my wife volunteered but did not get selected).
• Lastly, to all the doctors, nurses, and healthcare staff treating Covid cases – My sister-in-law is a doctor in Scotland, and she is always ready to jump in and help patients. The healthcare workers have truly risked their own lives trying to treat a highly infectious disease and save lives. It has been brutal and the situation may even get worse, but you have never given up the fight and you have shown true nobility in the darkest hours.

While I can go on and on about many other people we should be thankful for in this pandemic, I should probably wrap up this post now and wish all of you a safe and happy Thanksgiving. But I do want to leave one Thanksgiving thought here - as we give our thanks and gratitude on this day of Thanksgiving, isn’t it also time we ask ourselves what we can do for our society or the common good, and what we can do to help keep each other safe and healthy, instead of just insisting on our own way or own dogma, whatever that is? 

(Here are Part I - V of this article series.)

COVID-19 (Part I): What is the CFR number telling us - good, bad, or ugly?

COVID-19 (Part II): What else is the CFR number telling us?

COVID-19 (Part III): It is here; now what do we do?

COVID-19 (PART IV). Updates and New Development

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