KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — With positive COVID-19 cases and deaths running persistently high, Knox County health authorities advise that you think carefully about your upcoming Thanksgiving plans.
Advance testing is a good idea before taking a trip. But remember that it only represents the results from that moment in time, and it's possible you could test positive the day after submitting your sample, Charity Menefee, KCHD's director of environmental and communicable disease, said Thursday.
Smarter still is thinking hard about any social gathering for the holiday, which is Nov. 26.
Medical professionals this year said they're limiting travel and only gathering in small groups with their most immediate family members. Menefee said she and her family plan to do the same.
Limit your potential exposure to COVID-19 ahead of any trip, she said.
Also, long-distance travel on an airplane is riskier than driving by yourself.
"If you become symptomatic in the least bit, you need to avoid seeing loved ones," she said.
If you must travel, Menefee said, always take a mask with you and have hand sanitizer handy to help kill any germs.
The more people you're around at Thanksgiving, one of America's most popular holidays, the greater chance you have to get or accidentally expose someone to the highly contagious disease, she said.
If you must travel, it's best to contact family members ahead of time and see how they're doing and if they've faced any recent exposure to COVID-19, she said.
Outdoor, distanced dining is better than indoor dining, she said.
The county and the state are seeing stubborn trends in daily positive cases, hospitalizations and deaths, figures show.
The county is at its highest ever 7-day average for cases and it's tied with the highest for the 14-day average, she said.
So far this month 20 Knox Countians have died from virus complications. In all of October, 21 people died. In all, 125 people have died since March.
Each week the county issues a benchmark that looks at the gauges of five health measurements, including positive case rates, testing ability and turnaround and deaths.
This week three of the five categories are red, a warning sign that more steps may need to be taken to curtail the virus spread. The red benchmarks are now in place for case rates, deaths and lab testing and turnaround.
Menefee said there's been growing pressure on labs to process tests and get them back to patients and health departments.
Hospital capacity including ICU beds and ventilators remain at yellow, a cautionary sign, as observed by area hospitals.
The county's ability to keep up with contact tracing -- tracking where the virus is going in the community -- is at green, which is good, but Health Department staff are weighing their options in case they'll need more help from the state to maintain pace, she said.