{"id":49952,"date":"2020-12-10T18:25:49","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T01:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/what-impact-will-thanksgiving-travel-have-on-covid-19-cases\/"},"modified":"2020-12-11T01:25:49","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T01:25:49","slug":"what-impact-will-thanksgiving-travel-have-on-covid-19-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/what-impact-will-thanksgiving-travel-have-on-covid-19-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"What impact will Thanksgiving travel have on COVID-19 cases?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Southwest Colorado residents traveled less during Thanksgiving weekend than years prior, but it\u2019s uncertain what impact holiday celebrations will have on a possible rise in COVID-19 cases.<\/p>\n

To slow the spread of COVID-19, health officials asked the public to refrain from traveling for Thanksgiving or hosting celebrations that would bring people from multiple households under one roof.<\/p>\n

Mobility data based on cellphone and traffic data<\/a> tracked by the state of Colorado showed there was about a 30% reduction in holiday travel compared with last year.<\/p>\n

San Juan Basin Public Health executive director Liane Jollon said the rate ranged significantly from community to community. Some places saw up to a 70% reduction in travel, with other areas experiencing no change.<\/p>\n

Southwest Colorado, Jollon said, was about on pace with the statewide average at 30%.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people came up with creative ways to make the holidays as normal as they could,\u201d she said. \u201cWe appreciate that. That\u2019s how we keep community spread under control, as best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bad news, Jollon said, is that Thanksgiving saw a 40% increase in traveling and mixing households than any other day in November this year, a time when stricter public health orders were put in place as COVID-19 surged in the county.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw people\u2019s interactions and movements reduce in November, steadily all month, until Thanksgiving,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

People gathering for the Thanksgiving holiday, and possibly spreading the virus, has yet to show up in the numbers.<\/p>\n

Typically, people start to test positive about a week after a holiday, as evidenced after Fourth of July and Halloween this year. But cases don\u2019t typically surge until three to four weeks afterward, as spread continues in a community.<\/p>\n

Statewide, the impacts of some communities moving into the stricter Level Orange and Level Red public health orders may have been counterbalanced by the Thanksgiving holiday, said Brian Devine with SJBPH.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all very uncertain right now, but it\u2019s starting to come into the data,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

La Plata County was reporting 1,329 positive cases on Thanksgiving. As of Wednesday, there were 1,821 positive cases \u2013 an increase of 492 cases.<\/p>\n

Devine said La Plata County\u2019s growth rate of new positive cases is about the same as before Thanksgiving, though Archuleta County has shown an increase and continues to climb.<\/p>\n

All this comes at a time when health officials are asking residents to hold true to best practices aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19 as two of the year\u2019s major holidays, Christmas and New Year\u2019s, loom.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve come a really, really long way, and there is good news on the horizon,\u201d said Jollon, referring to the vaccine. \u201cBut we still have to be extraordinarily cautious this Christmas and New Year. That\u2019s just the reality of the timeline.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southwest Coloradoans traveled less, health officials say<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[755,685,28,1753,29,668,686],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-christmas","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-headlines","tag-holiday-or-vacation","tag-newsletter","tag-public-health","tag-san-juan-basin-health-department"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49952"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}