No, but there have been plenty of people in the US gathering unnecessarily, not for essential work, but in large groups for Halloween parties and bars, with extended family and older relatives for Thanksgiving, and are likely to gather multiple times for Christmas once again.
Now unsurprisingly the pandemic is out of control, hospitals in many regions are overcapacity and the overworked essential healthcare workers mentioned are sending patients hundreds of miles away to the nearest available bed.
These gatherings are selfish and completely avoidable. If these multiple vaccine candidates are as promising as they are sounding, people should hold off a few more months on social events until this vaccine starts getting deployed to the highest risk crowd.
Most Americans think gathering for Thanksgiving and Christmas is both altruistic and very important. Selfishly, I would have preferred to stay home and call in, but my mom didn't want to be alone on Thanksgiving so I drove down to be with her.
They're perhaps not necessary in the strict sense of the word, but health authorities have consistently said that very important gatherings are okay as long as you try to do them safely.
This is so strange and alien to me - go visit older mother, and potentially infect her. Health authorities, meanwhile, consistenly said - if you can avoid Thanksgiving, do it.
And the opposite is strange and alien to me. I wish I knew a way to bridge the conceptual gap here, because it's been coming up a lot and I've never seen anyone successfully forge a common understanding.
I am well aware. But what is not essential are indoor weddings with hundreds or thousands of guests, a night at a packed bar, or a 30 person Thanksgiving dinner, when hospitals are overflowing and healthcare workers sick with the virus themselves are being asked to work overtime.
The virus has been around for almost a year now and people are still acting like we have no idea how it works or that uncontrolled spread can cause a disastrous collapse of healthcare systems.
