Turkey, yams, stuffing, and illness! As families gathered together this Thanksgiving, COVID-19 did too. All around the country, families didn’t allow the current state of affairs in the US to affect their thanksgiving celebrations. According to www.healthline.com, since Thanksgiving, “the number of new cases is up 20 percent… the number of hospitalizations has increased by 21 percent… and the number of deaths has increased by 39 percent.” 

What is usually a time of congregation and joy, has turned into a time of panic and despair. As was thought to be a possibility rather than a reality, the second wave of COVID-19 is here, and we have Thanksgiving to thank. In fact, the surge has been so bad that Dr. Robert Redfield the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said, “We are in the timeframe now that probably for the next 60 to 90 days we’re going to have more deaths per day than we had at 9/11 or we had at Pearl Harbor.” That’s over 3,000 people a day. The highest it has ever been. While this recent surge and the amount of deaths is a tragedy, all we can do is look forward and move on with the necessary precautions. And at least we have the hope of these new vaccines coming out, but still folks, let’s make it our aim to remain as safe as possible.