CDC: Avoid Traditional Trick-or-Treating, Costume Parties

The Centers for Disease Control has issued guidance for parents about Halloween trick-or-treating. Are you going to take your kids door-to-door in Utica and Rome?

The CDC is classifying Halloween activities from trick-or-treating to costume parties as low, medium, or high-risk. High-risk activities, including trick-or-treating door-to-door, are discouraged.

The CDC says parents and children should try to engage in activities that are less likely to spread COVID-19, and avoid high-risk ones.

Instead, the CDC hopes kids will participate in low-risk activities like:

Carving or decorating pumpkins with members of your household and displaying them
Carving or decorating pumpkins outside, at a safe distance, with neighbors or friends
Doing a Halloween scavenger hunt where children are given lists of Halloween-themed things to look for while they walk outdoors from house to house admiring Halloween decorations at a distance
Having a virtual Halloween costume contest
Having a Halloween movie night with people you live with

The CDC says people should avoid high-risk activities like traditional trick-or-treating, as well as:

Having trunk-or-treat where treats are handed out from trunks of cars lined up in large parking lots
Attending crowded costume parties held indoors
Going to an indoor haunted house where people may be crowded together and screaming
Going on hayrides or tractor rides with people who are not in your household

What are your plans for Halloween? Will you take the kids trick-or-treating or do you have a different plan?