Why You Should Stay Home On New Year's Eve

December 30, 2020 at 11:42 AM PST

Speaker 1: 00:00 Speaker 2: 00:39 Speaker 1: 00:41 Speaker 2: 00:52 Speaker 1: 01:24 Speaker 2: 01:32 Speaker 1: 02:51 Speaker 2: 03:02 Speaker 1: 03:35 Speaker 2: 03:49 Speaker 2: 04:43 Speaker 1: 05:31 Speaker 2: 05:50 Speaker 1: 06:27 Speaker 2: 06:36 Speaker 1: 06:55 Speaker 2: 07:02 Speaker 1: 07:18 Speaker 2: 07:29 Speaker 3: 07:39 It's official state leaders said Tuesday, the Corona virus stay at home order for Southern California will be in effect into the new year, but we may need extra vigilance even at home. If new year's Eve brings the typical parties and celebrations, the fear is new. Year's get togethers may produce the surge over the surge over the surge as described by governor Gavin Newsome and swamp, California hospitals. Joining me is Dr. Rebecca fielding Miller assistant professor in the Herbert Wertheim school of public health at UC San Diego and the division of infectious disease and global public health. Dr. Fielding Miller. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me now. New year's Eve parties are described in a CNN article today as a COVID 19 dream. Why would that be the case? You know, there's a lot of things that are going on for new years. Um, for one thing, they're in this perfect window to sort of reinfect a whole new cadre of people after those who were potentially infected from Christmas. Um, we also want to hug and kiss people on new year's. We want to drink, um, and eat and we'll be taking our masks down to drink. And even if we're being very careful, alcohol can make us a little bit less careful than we might mean to. So it's a confluence of a lot of things that make it a very dangerous evening. Can you explain what the governor meant when he said we're in danger of seeing a surge over a surge over a surge? Yeah. So a lot of us who have been thinking about COVID for a while, which is like 11 months at this point, um, have been really worried about what the holiday season is going to look like. And that's why you've heard a lot of us kind of waving our arms around about where the base numbers were from the summer. So what's happened is people have gone. And even if they were careful, um, they have celebrated Thanksgiving with family. So they've been in close quarters with no masks with family and loved ones, and that has brought our numbers up quite high, as we've seen. And then a lot of folks went and did the same thing for the Christmas holiday. And again, there's a lot of eating being in close quarters, hugging being with people. We love those really natural behaviors. And so we haven't even really begun to see the effects of Christmas yet. Um, people who were infected are probably just starting to feel crummy and test positive. And so what is very likely to happen as people who were, um, celebrating on Christmas are now going to go be asymptomatic, celebrate with potentially different people than they were with at Christmas. And in fact, a whole new, um, group of people. So you have sort of an infection seating over the Christmas holidays and then going out into a whole bunch of new clusters of people for new years. What if you go and get a COVID test and it comes out negative, are you okay then to go to some sort of party? That would be great, but unfortunately not. So COVID tests are most accurate between five and eight days after you are exposed or infected. So even if you go, you get the fastest test possible, um, you get a test like five minutes before that new year's party. You haven't seen anybody since Christmas, you could still be infected and get a negative test. The window is just too short for accurate testing. There's literally no way to know. Um, so there's no way to test your way to a safe new year's. And if this feared surge does happen, if California hospitals become overwhelmed by an influx of COVID patients in January, how do you think that will affect the death rate from the disease? I mean, this is the thing that we've been trying to avoid this whole time. When we've been saying flatten the curve, it was never about we're going to eradicate COVID. It was about we're going to have a functioning health system. And that's the thing that we are losing right now. And so our healthcare providers, nurses, doctors, support staff has been working so hard for so long. And when you overwhelm hospitals, when you overwhelm ICU, it's not just about equipment, it's about staff. And so when you are calling up, um, people who maybe don't have ICU experience, they're experts in other things, but they're doing their best to pitch in. You are not getting the care of a well rested expert who has time to look and think and, um, perform at their absolute peak. You have an exhausted overstretched person and you have too few of them. So you have this overstretching of staff, you have this lack of, um, stuff. Um, you have a lack of ventilators. You have a lack of beds and you just have a lack of space. And my biggest concern is that we're going to get to a place where we start actually having to think about triaging and rationing care, which is never a thing, um, that we really have to think about in the U S if we are wealthy and have health insurance. Um, and so there's going to be a moment potentially when doctors and nurses and providers have to start thinking about who do I treat first, uh, the elderly grandmother who just wanted to see her kids for Thanksgiving or the 25 year old teacher who just wanted to see their friends for new years. And that is the bad thing to have to be thinking about, but it could come. So what you're saying, and other health experts are saying as well, is that typical new year's Eve parties could, could become super spreader events, but is there any way for people to celebrate it? If for instance, is it safe for people to people to celebrate outdoors? It is safer to celebrate outdoors. Certainly. Um, you can think about at risk spectrum, right? If you absolutely must be with friends or family, and I would genuinely beg you not to, but if you absolutely must, please go outside, please wear a mask, please be at least six feet apart from one another at all times. But just to remember that that's really hard to maintain. We're, we're human we're people. It's hard to stay six feet apart the whole time, again, especially if champagne is involved or anything else. Um, but outside is safer. Mask is safer. Fewer people is safer. So are there alternatives, uh, for folks besides staying home and watching Anderson Cooper drink champagne at midnight? Um, you know, there's a lot of things that you can do. There's the, the zoom classic at this point, if you are sick of a screen, um, maybe think of a way that you can see this year out on your own, that feels cathartic. Maybe write down all the things that you hate about 2020, set them on fire and put them in the sink. Maybe that's what I'll be doing. I was going to ask you, I was going to ask you, how will you be celebrating this year? Yeah, We'll probably, I might be setting something on fire and putting it in the sink very safely. Um, with my husband, I will be celebrating at home. Uh, we might have a glass of champagne or something else to bring out the new year and hope for a good, um, 20, 21. I think we all do. Thank you so much, Dr. Rebecca fielding Miller for talking to me about this and however you celebrate safely, I hope you have a happy new year. Thank you. You too. [inaudible].

By KPBS Public Media

"What is very likely to happen is people who were celebrating on Christmas are now going to go, be asymptomatic, celebrate with potentially different people than they were with at Christmas and infect a whole new group of people," epidemiologist Dr. Rebecca Fielding-Miller said.