If you had told us back in March that, come the end of October, we'd still be dealing with lifestyle changes in response to a global pandemic that has truly changed the way we live, we wouldn't have believed you. And yet, here we are looking through the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) new guidelines concerning the upcoming holiday season, including Halloween.
"These considerations are meant to supplement—not replace—any state, local, territorial, or tribal health and safety laws, rules, and regulations with which holiday gatherings must comply," read the official guidelines. "When planning to host a holiday celebration, you should assess current COVID-19 levels in your community to determine whether to postpone, cancel, or limit the number of attendees."
The directives, issued earlier this week, are split into categories: Halloween, Día de los Muertos and Thanksgiving.
Needless to say, "many traditional Halloween activities can be high-risk for spreading viruses," which is why we're advised to opt into alternative modes of celebration. You could, perhaps, choose to carve and decorate pumpkins with members of your household or doing so outside—at a safe distance!—with friends and neighbors. Other proposed low-risk activities include decorating your home (duh, we were going to do that regardless!), virtual costume contests, indoor movie nights with the folks you live in and "doing a Halloween scavenger hunt where children are given lists of Halloween-themed things to look for while they walk outdoors from house to house admiring decorations at a distance." You can even try an indoor hunt-style trick-or-treat search limited to those who live in your house. Generally speaking, the government body considers virtual gatherings and those involving one's immediate household as low-risk pursuits.
The CDC also points out moderate-risk activities that some might decide to partake in, including trick-or-treating sessions involving individually wrapped goodie bags that could be grabbed while maintaining social distance (place them in your driveway, perhaps, or outside your closed door), leading an outdoor costume parade, attending an open-air and one-way walk-through haunted forest, heading to pumpkin patches (make sure the use of hand sanitizer is enforced prior to touching pumpkins) and outdoor movie nights.
As for high-risk activities that you should most definitely stay away from: forget about traditional trick-or-treating, crowded costume parties, indoor haunted houses and indulging in treats that are handed out from trunks of cars in large parking lots (that happens?). The CDC also advises against using alcohol or drugs, since they "can cloud judgement and increase risky behaviors."
One more thing: A costume mask is not (and we repeat, it is not) a proper substitute for a cloth mask. That being said, the CDC advises not to wear a costume mask over a protective one because you might have a hard time breathing. The best option? A Halloween-themed costume mask that's made of two or more layers of breathable fabric and covers the mouth and the nose without leaving gaps around the face.
Sure, Halloween is going to look different, but it is still Halloween after all. Let's try to enjoy it!
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