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Brian Lehrer: Thanksgiving is a week from today and now to finish out today's show, a call in on your pandemic year two Thanksgiving plan, specifically, will you be checking vaccination cards at the door this Thanksgiving? Will zoom be on the menu? Are you heading back indoors with friends for a friends giving or with family around the table or keeping it small or virtual? Call us at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 and share how you're planning to balance Thanksgiving risks and rewards this year when being boosted doesn't just mean you're the kid sitting on the phone book or the power broker.

What does fill in for a booster seat now, now that there are no more phone books? Nevermind. We don't have to answer that question. Mayor de Blasio has this suggestion for how to get together safely, listen.

Mayor Bill de Blasio Get tested before you attend major gatherings or family gatherings. Get tested because you'll know you're safe.

Brian Lehrer: That's new today. Mayor de Blasio saying not only get vaccinated, get tested, even if you're vaccinated before you go to a Thanksgiving gathering. Is that your plan rapid antigen tests to start your Thanksgiving holiday before the first course? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. The truth is that the experts and the survey results are kind of all over the place on how protective, how cautious people are going to be for Thanksgiving. On Monday, Dr. Fauci was asked about how we should celebrate and here's what he said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: If you get vaccinated and your family's vaccinated, you can feel good about enjoying a typical Thanksgiving, Christmas with your family and close friends. We unfortunately still have a dynamics of infection in the community of about 70,000 new cases per day. When you go to indoor congregate settings, go the extra mile, be safe, wear a mask, but when you are with your family at home, goodness, enjoy it with your parents, your children, your grandparents. There's no reason not to do that.

Brian Lehrer: "No reason not to do that if you're vaccinated," says Dr. Fauci. Mayor de Blasio taking an extra step from what Dr. Fauci has been out saying and saying, get tested too. Listeners, what are you going to do? Is there drama in your family about who should go where, who shouldn't go where, who should sit on that booster seat at grandma's house if they're under five and not vaccinated? 212-433-WNYC. What are your COVID related Thanksgiving plans and how much drama is there in your family about them?

Stat news asked a panel of 28 infectious disease experts what they would do. Almost all said they would be comfortable traveling by air, train or bus, but only a slim majority said they would host a multi-generational Thanksgiving meal. 16 of the 28 said they would advise elderly relatives not to attend that meal at all. That's a majority of infectious disease experts saying don't have multi-general Thanksgivings this year. 12 of the 28 said they would ask guests to do rapid antigen tests before arriving for the meals.

The experts start to get closer to de Blasio, but they're pretty divided on that according to those numbers. There's that. According to a survey quoted in the Wall Street Journal, almost half of adults said they would be attending a Thanksgiving dinner with more than 10 people. A quarter of respondent said they were still too COVID averse for that size gathering and families have negotiations going on right now.

Tell us about yours. Is there family drama or what risk versus family gathering benefit calculation are you winding up with? 212-433-WNYC. We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Your COVID related Thanksgiving plans. Christina in Old Japan, you're on WNYC. Hi Christina.

Christina: Hi Brian. Thank you so much for taking my call. I love your show.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. What you doing?

Christina: I've been a long time listener. For Thanksgiving, I'm pretty much celebrating with my dad's immediate family, so his parents, his sister, my husband, my younger sibling, and then also my mom's parents. It's going to be about 14 of us and everyone is vaccinated. Unfortunately, my mom's parents usually spend Thanksgiving with her sister, but we found out that she's not vaccinated because she didn't come to my wedding this fall, which required guests to be vaccinated, which has definitely been a little bit of a family drama.

She won't really discuss it with us and we actually, unfortunately, we just really don't talk to her anymore because of it and it's really sad.

Brian Lehrer: You're deciding whether to ban this unvaxxed relative or you've already decided?

Christina: I think she feels like we're banning her because we asked everyone for my wedding in September to be vaccinated if they were attending. Even though we have reached out to her and also we're really concerned about her health. Her husband is also has type one diabetes and is a high risk person and who is vaccinated. It's really out of our concern for her health and safety, but she doesn't see it that way. Unfortunately it is causing this rift and we can't celebrate holidays with her anymore.

Brian Lehrer: Christina, thank you for your call. Unfortunately, that sounds like a sad situation. Ethan on Cape Cod. You're on WNYC. Hi Ethan.

Ethan: Hey Brian, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What are you going to do with Thanksgiving?

Ethan: I'm a huge fan.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Ethan: It also happens to be my birthday this year on Thanksgiving, which is very exciting. We were going to go hang out with my sister near Boston and a bunch of relatives. It's a multigenerational thing. They're a bunch of people in their 20s, a bunch in their 50s and some in their 70s. Turns out that everyone has to get a rapid test and all of that. We just decided we're going to keep it real small. It's just going to be me, my partner and our three dogs and a vegan feast.

Brian Lehrer: Ha. You're going to Zoom with some of the others?

Ethan: Exactly. We're going to do a little zooming so we can have a little feeling of being there with everyone.

Brian Lehrer: Ethan, thank you very much. If you invite Eric Adams to your vegan feast, he might even come all the way to Cape Cod. Peter in Centerport, you're on WNYC. Hi Peter.

Peter: Hi Brian. Thanks for taking the call. We're going to have a smaller group together for Thanksgiving, but already have planned the entire family to be together for Christmas. I guess we're planning on following the science. It seems if you've had COVID you've got great protection. If you're vaccinated, you've got great protection, but what we've all been told through the rapid test sites that we've gone to is that if you don't have symptoms, don't bother getting tested. We're following what we've been directed to and unless somebody has symptoms, they're not going to get tested.

Brian Lehrer: Peter, thank you very much. We're going to follow up on this tomorrow. Now that the mayor has recommended that everybody get tested. I think I would have to look at it more closely. Listeners don't take this segment or what I'm saying as the last word, but I think he's suggesting PCR tests a few days before Thanksgiving. You get the results back and then rapid tests in addition day of and the rapid tests are more accurate in some circumstances than in others. Very accurate if you do have symptoms, still somewhat accurate, largely accurate, but not entirely accurate.

Again, don't take this as the last scientific word, but there are complexities on this, of what you need to show that you're really COVID free if testing is your method. If you're infectious, you're going to be pretty likely to test positive on a rapid test is my understanding symptoms or not. People are going to have to sort this out. We're going to try to do some science about this tomorrow, now that the mayor is recommending this. We'll come back to it in more detail tomorrow.

Martha in Las Vegas, you're on WNYC. Hi Martha.

Martha: Hi Brian. I'm a long time listener way back to 1965 on PS35 Queens. When all you could get was children's programming. I've been in Las Vegas for some time.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, you mean that's what WNYC was doing in 1965?

Martha: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Wow.

Martha: PS35 Queens, Mrs. Thomas would bring in the radio and put it on her desk and we got to listen to some children's programming, and that was a treat.

Brian Lehrer: That was before Sesame street on television? What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

Martha: We had a dress rehearsal for Thanksgiving a few weeks ago. My very, very elderly mother-in-law came to live with us about a year ago. Of course, we're always very concerned about her and what we might bring into the house or what anyone else might bring into the house. We've all been vaccinated and we've all had boosters, but this was a very, very special birthday and the family decided we need to get together finally.

Everyone was vaccinated except one person who was not eligible for vaccination, and just like the other caller said, it was a multigenerational thing from my infant granddaughter all the way up to my mother-in-law. Thank God the weather was great. People were able to be partly outside, partly inside, everyone behaved themselves, but the home health nurse who comes to look after my mother said a few days after this gathering, which would happen to be on Halloween.

She said, "You need to go get tested." We did, and we came back negative, but with the numbers in Nevada, which are terrible, especially Clark county, we're not taking any more chances. We had our gathering. It was great. We're just not doing it again.

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Brian Lehrer: You're going to lie low on Thanksgiving. Just not doing it again, interesting. In that case you did the testing afterwards, but you don't want to go through the questions again. Martha, thank you very much. All right. We're going to give Denise on the Upper West Side, the last story here. Denise-

Denise: Hi, Brian?

Brian Lehrer: -we have about 30 seconds for you. Go for it.

Denise: All right. My brother is not vaccinated. There are five adult siblings in our families wanting to get together, and it's a big argument because I support him in coming because I feel like Dr. Fauci is not listening to his experts and they're giving mixed messages. From what I understand is that if you're vaccinated it doesn't mean you can't get COVID or pass it. If he were to get tested and we all get tested, how is he posing more of a threat to us as each of us to each other? Because the vaccination is not stopping you from getting COVID, it's not stopping you from spreading COVID, it's stopping me from going to the hospital. I don't want him to go to hospital, but it's like that's not really affecting our health.

Brian Lehrer: He doesn't care. Right? He doesn't believe it?

Denise: He doesn't think that he has any more likelihood of passing on COVID to us than we have on passing it to each other, and from what the CDC has said that he's correct, but they give mixed messages.

Brian Lehrer: Denise, thank you very much. We will follow up on this tomorrow with more science. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Thank you for all your calls.

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