By Daphne Chen and Madeline Heim
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
November 23, 2020
Doctors and health experts are no longer asking people to stay home for the holidays.
They are begging.
Across Wisconsin, overflowing hospitals and spiking case rates are causing panic among health care workers and public health officials who are sounding the alarm that the state is about to enter the most dangerous period of the pandemic yet.
“The timing and confluence with what’s happening in Wisconsin, I don’t think could be worse,” said Amanda Simanek, epidemiologist with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
For health experts, Thanksgiving is a nightmare scenario in terms of respiratory disease transmission.
The holiday combines people gathering indoors for prolonged periods of time, eating and drinking for hours on end and shouting at the football games on TV — all likely without face masks.