Last call at bars this Thanksgiving eve will be at 5 because of COVID-19 surge. ICUs are filling. Things didn't have to be this bad.

THE ISSUE

“Amid COVID-19 case surges unseen in the pandemic’s first wave of infections, Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday said that he was ‘stepping up’ enforcement for businesses that do not comply with public health orders,” LNP | LancasterOnline reported. “Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine also announced a prohibition on alcohol sales at restaurants and bars from 5 p.m. (today) until 8 a.m.Thanksgiving. ‘We cannot let our health care systems crack under the strain of COVID-19,’ Wolf said.”

In most years, Thanksgiving Eve — tonight — is when people return from their grown-up lives elsewhere and meet up with their childhood and high school pals in their favorite hometown bars.

The night is so entrenched in American popular culture that it’s been dubbed “Drinksgiving” or — worryingly — “Blackout Wednesday.”

So we’re sure some people were sorry to see yet another social tradition lost to the abyss that is 2020.

And we know bar and restaurant owners were disappointed to learn that sales of alcohol for on-site consumption must end at 5 p.m. today. In most years, Thanksgiving Eve is a major revenue-producer for bars.

We certainly agree with what Joe Devoy, founder and owner of Tellus360 in downtown Lancaster, told LNP | LancasterOnline: Wolf and Levine should have given bar owners and managers more than two days’ notice about the Thanksgiving Eve alcohol sales restriction.

The current surge didn’t just emerge from nowhere; it’s been building. Anyone with a calendar in Harrisburg could have apprised Wolf and Levine of the dates of Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving.

Of course, none of this had to unfold as it has.

In Lancaster County, we might be better off had county leaders ensured that anyone who needed a COVID-19 test could get one readily — and get the results quickly, too. And if they had regularly and repeatedly encouraged county residents to wear masks and practice social distancing, and had embraced those preventive measures even when politically inconvenient.

We might have established a better balance between protecting people’s health and protecting the economy had the federal government produced a national plan for managing the pandemic.

But none of that happened, so here we are, with the governor imposing a costly restriction on businesses at the eleventh hour; county elected officials unable to adequately deal with the consequences of having treated mask-wearing as a purely personal matter; and our nation’s leader concerned most about disseminating election myths.

And us, facing an alarming COVID-19 surge that demands we make more sacrifices.

The awful numbers

Pennsylvania reported an additional 6,669 positive cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, according to the state Department of Health. The additional cases bring the commonwealth’s overall total to 321,070 cases.

Of those 6,669 new cases, 268 were from Lancaster County, bringing the county’s total to 14,684.

Speaking at a Lancaster County news conference Tuesday, Dr. Michael Ripchinski, chief clinical officer at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, said, “We cannot sit back and hope for the best. Action is required from all of us.”

That means taking far greater caution and avoiding situations and places in which we could be exposed to COVID-19, or unknowingly, asymptomatically, spread the virus ourselves.

As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website points out, “The more an individual interacts with others, and the longer that interaction, the higher the risk of COVID-19 spread. ... The risk of COVID-19 spread increases in a restaurant or bar setting as interactions within 6 feet of others increase.” And as face masks are set aside while eating and drinking.

As of Tuesday, LNP | LancasterOnline’s Carter Walker reported, Lancaster General Hospital had 80 COVID-19 patients, with 20 of those in critical care and 15 on ventilators.

This is exacting a brutal toll on health care workers, who have been dealing with the pandemic for eight months.

Last week, the concern was that Pennsylvania might run out of intensive-care unit beds in mid-December. But Monday, Levine said that the latest projections show the commonwealth could run out of ICU beds within a week.

“This week’s data, in terms of hospitalization increase, an increase in the use of ventilators, case increase and percent positivity are worrisome,” Levine said in a statement.

Sixty-three of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties — including Lancaster County — now are considered to have “substantial” community transmission of the novel coronavirus.

“At the beginning of the month,” LNP | LancasterOnline’s Nicole C. Brambila reported, “Pennsylvania’s positivity rate was 6.9%. Last week’s seven-day average was 11.1%.

“In Lancaster County, 11.3% of COVID tests were positive in the past week.”

Ripchinski said Tuesday that over the last two weeks, “we have had an average of 240 (people) testing positive per day” — the highest since the pandemic began.

Please stay home

So this, clearly, is not the time to be hanging in bars with your friends. Even Chuck Moran, executive director of the Pennsylvania Licensed Beverage and Tavern Association, acknowledged that reality.

“We understand that the COVID case numbers are increasing, and once again, our industry understands that it is being asked to sacrifice in order to play a role in saving lives of Pennsylvanians,” Moran said in a statement. “We get the importance of keeping patrons safe. ... But what we don’t get is why there has been no significant financial help to assist our small business taverns and licensed restaurants survive.”

Moran noted that as “this crisis continues, more small businesses are closing while their employees lose jobs. Help is needed now, not later. Many small businesses cannot sustain continued targeted mitigation without help from either the federal or state government.”

We agree with him. While small businesses including bars and restaurants received funding from the federal coronavirus relief package passed by Congress in the spring, they’ve been dealing with significant challenges in the months since. They need more help.

And health care workers need the help of all of us.

So, in addition to staying home this Thanksgiving Eve, please rethink any plans you might have to gather for Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family members from outside your household.

As Dr. Leon Kraybill, chief of LG Health’s geriatric division and post-acute care, pointed out in a Nov. 15 Perspective column, “Once COVID-19 gets into a home, recent studies show that more than half of household contacts will also become infected.”

“There will eventually be a time when we can gather joyously in community to share food and fun,” Kraybill wrote. “That time is not now.”

We want you to be around when it finally does arrive.

Today's Top Stories

Crédito: THE LNP | LANCASTERONLINE EDITORIAL BOARD