PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — What are you doing New Year's Eve? Whatever you have planned, the United States is currently seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases — nearly 200,000 a day — so health officials say it is best to avoid big parties to ring in the new year.
Preparations are underway in Philadelphia for the New Year's Day parade with the Mummers. Infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said on CNN that outdoor gatherings such as the Mummers Parade are all right, as long as everyone is wearing a mask.
He says this is not the year to return to normal with big New Year's Eve parties indoors. Fauci instead urges people to keep it small, with just their immediate families.
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"A New Year's Eve party, where you have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating — you do not know the status of their vaccination. I would recommend strongly: Stay away from that this year. There will be other years to do that but not this year."
For those who plan to attend a party anyway, he recommends taking a COVID-19 test first, but he warns it might be hard to find one.
"It’s been a very, very strong run on testing. And obviously not making any excuses for it. We should have had more tests available, but hopefully as we get into the first couple of weeks in January, that will get much better," Fauci said.
Fauci says a pill to treat COVID-19 after infection has shown great potential as well, and the government has ordered millions of doses. But production is a long process, so that order isn’t going to be ready for a little while.
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The Defense Production Act could be used to help speed things up, but it is unclear just how much. Help cannot come soon enough, as nearly 200,000 new COVID-19 cases are reported in the U.S. every day, a number health experts say will keep rising.