CALIFORNIA TRICK-OR-TREATING BANNED

Californians are being strongly discouraged from trick-or-treating this year because it poses a "high risk of spreading COVID-19," California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said.

Before doing his weekly update on the reopening tier levels for counties, Ghaly laid out the state's guidelines for how to celebrate Halloween and Dia de los Muertos, KCRA  3 News reported

Traditional Halloween activities, such as door-to-door trick-or-treating and parties, are highly discouraged, Ghaly said. He noted that if a positive case is discovered, it could be challenging to do proper contact tracing to alert those who may have been exposed to the virus.

"The whole act of going door to door in groups, ringing doorbells, digging into buckets of delicious candy, create a risk of spreading COVID-19," he said. "The fact that positive cases are hard to discover and probably really challenging to contact trace also pose challenges that we feel like are too great.

As alternatives, Ghaly suggested families celebrate at home with face painting, pumpkin carving or by creating a haunted house or candy hunt.