Covid-19: How you handle this Labor Day will help steer the course of the pandemic, doctors say

“So I’m worried that any new surges will be potentially quite catastrophic.”

Why Labor Day behavior is even more critical

Unlike on Memorial Day and Independence Day, Americans now face two major challenges that could either be hurt or helped by their behavior this holiday:

— Getting students back in school safely and making sure they’re able to stay in school. Both depend on how much coronavirus is spreading in the community.

— The imminent flu season. The coronavirus pandemic coinciding with the flu season this fall could strain or max out hospital capacity — which could mean reduced care for anyone else who needs to go the hospital.

“Particularly as we go on the other side of Labor Day and enter into the fall … we don’t want to go into that with another surge that we have to turn around again,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Is it possible to still have fun this Labor Day?

Absolutely. Of course, the safest way is to celebrate solo or with those you live with.

Outdoor activities such as hiking or biking are also good options.

— Make sure only one person is at the grill.

— Put the cooked food on separate plates for each person attending. Then move away from the grill.

— Ask people to come and get a plate one at a time.

What we learned after Fourth of July celebrations

“By the middle of June, we were pretty much at our nadir in terms of new Covid-19 cases. We are around 20,000 new cases (per day),” said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

“And then after July Fourth, that’s when things really started to rev up and accelerate to the point where we went up to 65,000, 70,000 new cases a day. And now we’re back down to 40,000 cases,” Hotez said Monday.

“Unfortunately, we’re already at a much higher level than we were in the weeks before the July Fourth holiday. So I don’t think it’ll take much to really bring us back up to 70,000 new cases a day.”

Some are letting their guard down

In San Francisco, an event celebrating Burning Man culture had more than 1,000 people packed together at Ocean Beach, Mayor London Breed said.

The gathering was “reckless and selfish,” the mayor said, and city officials announced the parking lot at Ocean Beach would be closed.

And a “Sunday Funday” rooftop party was advertised with an image of people standing close together, some without masks. There was no mention of safety precautions in the ad.

Another official sees little chance of vaccine by Election Day

President Donald Trump again on Labor Day talked about possibly having a vaccine before Election Day, a timeline experts have cast doubt on.

And Monday, another federal official said that despite the President’s positive statements, there’s hardly any chance a vaccine will be available to Americans by November 3.

“I don’t know any scientist involved in this effort who thinks we will be getting shots into arms any time before Election Day,” said the official, who is familiar with Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s effort to develop coronavirus vaccines.

Several times the President has said a vaccine will come “very soon,” and Monday he said it could come before a “special day.”

But officials such as Moncef Slaoui, the chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, and Dr. Larry Corey, who is leading a group set up by the National Institutes of Health to work on coronavirus vaccines, have said the odds of that happening are low.