Hartford, Conn.(WTIC Radio)-As families gather to celebrate Thanksgiving, personal risk assessment should provide guidance to keep everyone Covid-free, according to healthcare professionals at Hartford Healthcare.
Be aware of your surroundings, get vaccinated and boosters, and minus that, practice social distancing and mask wearing, said Ulysses Wu, MD, Chief Epidemiologist and System Director, Infectious Diseases.
"We need to embrace normalcy at this point. But we need to be smart about it. That this could be the new normal for quite some time at this point."
Mask wearing depends on the size of your gathering, Wu said. "Are they coming from an area where there was a higher transmission of Covid. Are they coming from an institutionalized setting or where there's a large amount of people such as schools and things like that where they could be at further risk. I think it's going to be different for everybody. But if you're having just immediate family, like a family of four, I don't think you'd certainly need masks because you're probably not wearing masks every single night,"
"Don't be afraid to ask the questions before individuals come as to whether they've been vaccinated and previously tested and negative. And most importantly if they have any form of symptoms. I wouldn't accept it's just allergies. I would be very cautious with statement such as that,' said Keith Grant, APRN, Senior System Director, Infection Prevention.