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Cute idea. You could carve your pumpkins, hunt for the candy in costume, put on Halloween music while you hunted, then go inside, decorate Halloween cupcakes or cookies, watch the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, read a spooky story as a family. Lots of ways to celebrate safely while social distancing.
This is all great if your kids are, like, 8 and under. Not that fun for tweens and teens, especially the ones who have been basically confined to their house/yard with no one but their immediate family for the past six months already. Another night at home with the family only now we're wearing costumes, gee, how festive.
I agree with MissTerri that trick-or-treating wouldn't be very hard to do safely, i.e. with social distancing and also not having multiple people touch the candy, if that part is worrisome to you.
This is all great if your kids are, like, 8 and under. Not that fun for tweens and teens, especially the ones who have been basically confined to their house/yard with no one but their immediate family for the past six months already. Another night at home with the family, gee, how festive.
I agree with MissTerri that trick-or-treating wouldn't be very hard to do safely, i.e. with social distancing and also not having multiple people touch the candy, if that part is worrisome to you.
I agree. My pre-tween would be devastated if we told her that we were staying home to hunt for candy in the yard. It’s not like she’s going out with a group so we can easily do it safely. Kids have been locked down tight for months. Our rec center pool is open but only for lap swimming and they won’t even let her do that because she’s a kid and I guess they don’t believe kids can swim laps.
I've been trying to find out just why T or T is not recommended. I mean, I get why people are asking "why"? Here's what I found from the LA County Department of Public Health: "According to guidelines from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, it “is not recommended because it can be very difficult to maintain proper social distancing on porches and at front doors, ensure that everyone answering or coming to the door is appropriately masked to prevent disease spread, and because sharing food is risky.” " https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/09/...official-says/
My own enquiring mind thinks that with the standard of 15 minutes of exposure at less than 6 feet, that the total exposure for two hours or so of Trick or Treating could be well over 15 minutes and the standard trick or treat distance is about 1 foot. When we started discussing this issue on my town FB page, I was the Negative Nelly who said you couldn't guarantee that all the homeowners would be masked. Remember the mask protects others, ie, the kids, not the person wearing the mask.
Some of the low-risk suggestions from the CDC would work well for pre-teens, e.g. "Carving or decorating pumpkins outside, at a safe distance, with neighbors or friends". Even a moderate-risk activity could be done, such as "Having an outdoor Halloween movie night with local family friends with people spaced at least 6 feet apart".
Both from the link.
I've been trying to find out just why T or T is not recommended. I mean, I get why people are asking "why"? Here's what I found from the LA County Department of Public Health: "According to guidelines from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, it “is not recommended because it can be very difficult to maintain proper social distancing on porches and at front doors, ensure that everyone answering or coming to the door is appropriately masked to prevent disease spread, and because sharing food is risky.” " https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/09/...official-says/
My own enquiring mind thinks that with the standard of 15 minutes of exposure at less than 6 feet, that the total exposure for two hours or so of Trick or Treating could be well over 15 minutes and the standard trick or treat distance is about 1 foot. When we started discussing this issue on my town FB page, I was the Negative Nelly who said you couldn't guarantee that all the homeowners would be masked. Remember the mask protects others, ie, the kids, not the person wearing the mask.
Some of the low-risk suggestions from the CDC would work well for pre-teens, e.g. "Carving or decorating pumpkins outside, at a safe distance, with neighbors or friends". Even a moderate-risk activity could be done, such as "Having an outdoor Halloween movie night with local family friends with people spaced at least 6 feet apart".
Both from the link.
Basically it’s because they don’t trust people to be able to make good decisions. One of my kids is attending school a couple of days a week. That’s far riskier. I’d say that my trips to the grocery store are riskier then trick or treating since I’m indoors and surrounded by a lot of people. My kids are trick or treating and I’m passing out candy. Hope others will do so as well.
(snip) Our rec center pool is open but only for lap swimming and they won’t even let her do that because she’s a kid and I guess they don’t believe kids can swim laps.
Our Rec Center is also open for swimming laps for adults only. This started about July. It has very, very strict rules. The changing rooms and the bathrooms are not open. You need to sign up for a time and a lane in advance. Between the hour and five minutes after the hour you can enter the building through the open door (you can't touch the door handles or congregate by the door). You must wear your swim suit under your clothes and take off your outerwear by a chair next to your lane. Just before you enter the water you can take off your mask. At five minutes before the hour you must leave the water, redress by your lane and exit through a different open door. You can not stop and talk with any other swimmers. Of course, there are not any spectators or visitors.
I believe that high school swim team members were originally allowed to swim but too many didn't follow the rules and that age group was banned from signing up to swim (at least for a while). The adults have been warned that if they break the rules they will be individually banned or they may need to completely shut down the program.
I bet that your Rec Center pool has similar rules and that is why children are not allowed. Heck, even the "no bathroom rule" and "no spectator rule" could be a problem for children, as well as following the other rules.
Cute idea. You could carve your pumpkins, hunt for the candy in costume, put on Halloween music while you hunted, then go inside, decorate Halloween cupcakes or cookies, watch the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, read a spooky story as a family. Lots of ways to celebrate safely while social distancing.
My own enquiring mind thinks that with the standard of 15 minutes of exposure at less than 6 feet, that the total exposure for two hours or so of Trick or Treating could be well over 15 minutes and the standard trick or treat distance is about 1 foot.
Wait, isn't that supposed to be exposure of 15 minutes or more at less than six feet from an infected person? This is what I don't understand. Even if a child walks up to the door and is within 1 foot of the homeowner who hands out candy, the entire contact is only a few seconds. Then a different child comes up...another few seconds. These kids are surely not all infected and contagious, adding up to 10 minutes of exposure to the virus.
Even if one of them is contagious, the question is whether a few-second contact (in outside air, no less) is really a Covid transmission risk for either the child or the adult. If it's true that a person needs to be in contact with the virus (i.e. sharing space with an infected person) for at least several minutes to become infected, T-o-T shouldn't be a high-risk activity at all.
Our Rec Center is also open for swimming laps for adults only. This started about July. It has very, very strict rules. The changing rooms and the bathrooms are not open. You need to sign up for a time and a lane in advance. Between the hour and five minutes after the hour you can enter the building through the open door (you can't touch the door handles or congregate by the door). You must wear your swim suit under your clothes and take off your outerwear by a chair next to your lane. Just before you enter the water you can take off your mask. At five minutes before the hour you must leave the water, redress by your lane and exit through a different open door. You can not stop and talk with any other swimmers. Of course, there are not any spectators or visitors.
I believe that high school swim team members were originally allowed to swim but too many didn't follow the rules and that age group was banned from signing up to swim (at least for a while). The adults have been warned that if they break the rules they will be individually banned or they may need to completely shut down the program.
I bet that your Rec Center pool has similar rules and that is why children are not allowed. Heck, even the "no bathroom rule" and "no spectator rule" could be a problem for children, as well as following the other rules.
I bet. She was going to go with my husband and swim laps but they were adamant that she was not allowed. Kids are really losing a lot in all of this. From a social and mental health standpoint, it’s damaging.
Wait, isn't that supposed to be exposure of 15 minutes or more at less than six feet from an infected person? This is what I don't understand. Even if a child walks up to the door and is within 1 foot of the homeowner who hands out candy, the entire contact is only a few seconds. Then a different child comes up...another few seconds. These kids are surely not all infected and contagious.
Even if one of them is, the question is whether a few-second contact (in outside air, no less) is really a Covid transmission risk for either the child or the adult. If it's true that a person needs to be in contact with the virus (i.e. sharing space with an infected person) for at least several minutes to become infected, T-o-T shouldn't be a high-risk activity at all.
I'll wait but I don't know what for.
I said "cumulative time". You don't know who has Covid. If a kid Trick or Treats for 2 hours, s/he may encounter several people with Covid. The cumulative time may be more than 15 minutes. And it takes more than a few seconds for the child(ren) to say "Trick or Treat", and get their treats. The parent with the kids may have Covid. Surely you don't let young children go out alone. Some of the kids in the group may have it. And what is wrong with "err(ing) on the side of caution"? It's funny to me that parents who are so cautious about some things would be so blase about their kids getting Covid.
I've been a public health/pediatric nurse long enough to know that there are many parents who think their cough, or their kid's, isn't contagious. Heck, even when my husband was in a major teaching hospital on an oncology floor, a visitor brought croup to the unit because they apparently thought their cough wasn't contagious, and they lied to the screeners. DH didn't get it, but I did. "Err on the side of caution". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/err_o...ide_of_caution "To act in the least risky manner in a situation in which one is uncertain about the consequences"
The CDC and the LA County Health Dept. say it's high-risk. I'm sure they have some research to back it up.
Here's another good article: https://www.aarp.org/home-family/fri...ronavirus.html " "You're face-to-face with a lot of people, and you can't trust that everyone will be wearing masks when answering the door. You may also be touching things that may be contaminated, like candies in bowls where people were rummaging through,” she (Pediatrician Nadeen White) explains. . . "Screen your neighbors to see what their risk factors are. If you're on a cul-de-sac where you know people have been very careful about not going out or traveling or doing dangerous activities, and no one's had COVID-19, you can all wear masks and go trick-or-treating to six or 10 houses,” she says." "
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 09-24-2020 at 07:13 PM..
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