White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said Americans should limit indoor gatherings to immediate households this Thanksgiving.
“I don't like it to be any number,” she said. “Because you know, if you say it can be 10, and it's eight people from four different families, then that probably is not the same degree of safe as 10 people from your immediate household.”
Birx said she understood why the lack of uniformity in open and close spaces across the country can make social distancing messaging confusing for Americans.
“I worry about that,” she told CNN. “[People] say, ‘Well, bars and restaurants are open, then I can have 20 people over for Thanksgiving.’”
She also said Americans need to look at their choices when all this is over.
“Europe was willing to sacrifice restaurants and bars to maintain their schools. We ask college students to sacrifice their college experience … to change their behaviors, to wear a mask, to physically distance. We have 18 to 22-year-olds doing the right thing, and we're not willing to tell people that they really can't gather in public spaces or even indoors with their mask off,” she said.
Birx said it’s on every American to protect each other.
“I’m making the personal sacrifices not to infect my parents and my pregnant daughter, and there's a lot of people out there who know how to protect one another, and we just need to make sure we're all doing that.”
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