CDC URGES AMERICANS TO AVOID THANKSGIVING TRAVEL

With the coronavirus surging out of control, the nation’s top public health agency pleaded with Americans not to travel for Thanksgiving and not to spend the holiday with people from outside their household, Mike Stobbe and Heather Hollingsworth reported for the Associated Press (AP).

The Thanksgiving warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came as the White House coronavirus task force met for the first time in months and Vice President Mike Pence concluded a briefing without responding to questions by reporters or urging Americans not to travel. Other members of the task force — whose media briefings were a daily fixture during the early days of the outbreak — talked about the progress being made in the development of a vaccine.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech will seek emergency government approval for their coronavirus vaccine on Friday. And infection disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci sought to reassure the public that the vaccine is safe while still encouraging Americans to wear masks.

The CDC’s Thanksgiving warning was some of the firmest guidance yet from the government on curtailing traditional gatherings to fight the outbreak. The CDC issued the recommendations just one week before Thanksgiving, at a time when diagnosed infections, hospitalizations and deaths are skyrocketing across the country. In many areas, the health care system is being squeezed by a combination of sick patients filling up beds and medical workers falling ill themselves. The CDC’s Dr. Erin Sauber-Schatz cited more than 1 million new cases in the US over the past week as the reason for the new guidance.