Alabama healthcare providers want to make sure COVID-19 isn’t on the menu this Thanksgiving.
The State Department of Public Health is advising Alabamians to practice effective safety protocols this turkey season. The concern is over family members who are immunocompromised.
State Public Health spokeswoman Doctor Karen Landers has advice for anyone who feels sick.
“Please don’t go to a holiday gathering. Please talk to your healthcare provider and be assessed for the illness that you have," she said. "So often we’ve had people who maybe didn’t feel quite well but just took a bit of Tylenol and went on the gathering and subsequently found out they had COVID and that exposed a lot of people.”
Landers asks residents who attend gatherings to consider handwashing, social distancing. Another suggestion is to have person hand out dinner instead of eating buffet style.
“In this particular pandemic, do we really want to have a buffet, or do we want one person or two people to be serving people individual plates? That might be a good idea in any particular situation in the winter when we have respiratory droplets spread illnesses,” she said.
ADPH reports a 4 percent positivity rate when it comes to the spread of COVID-19 in Alabama. However, about 55 percent of Alabamians remain unvaccinated.