You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hey everybody, Maddie Sifai here and Emily Quang.

So over the past week, the US has hit a record number of coronavirus cases multiple times.

The US enters the worst stage of the coronavirus pandemic to date with an unthinkable one million

new cases each week and no sign of letting up. Well, any California is the second

state to record more than one million coronavirus cases.

In the past month, the number of people hospitalized with the virus in the US has nearly doubled.

We now have what experts call unchecked community spread in more than 40 states.

Some hospitals and parts of the Midwest are completely at capacity or almost there.

And many of our healthcare workers are exhausted. And this is happening as we're headed into the

holidays. Right. And the reality is when people get together for holidays like Thanksgiving,

it's impossible to be risk-free. All gatherings carry risk. And that risk is considerably greater

when you include people from outside your immediate household.

Yeah, the safest way to do Thanksgiving is actually to stay where you are.

Celebrate in person with those you already live with and virtually with those you don't.

That's what Dr. Anthony Fauci is doing.

I have three adult professional daughters in three separate parts of the country that would require

flying for two of them and driving for another. What we're going to do is we're going to have a meal

with my wife and I and we're going to zoom in and spend some time back and forth with the girls.

I don't like it that way, but I think they're making a prudent decision in trying to protect

their father and I'm proud of them to that.

But realistically, we know that not everyone is going to have a remote Thanksgiving.

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