BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — The best thing to do to stay safe at a gathering is to not host or attend one at all.
Dr. Thomas Russo, Chief of the Division of Infectious Disease at the University at Buffalo, said risks can be minimized, but it's impossible to drive the risk to zero.
In short it's not advisable, unless you follow a rigorous plan. But Dr. Russo said the curve of infections in Western New York is going up.
If you're determined to have a gathering, here's what Dr. Russo said you can do. "No one in the gathering should have been previously infected or in close contact with someone that was infected," he said.
If you were, everyone needs to be quarantined for 14 days."No going out to Wegmans, no interacting with the neighbors next door," he said.
If anyone develops symptoms, they cannot go. If everyone is healthy, there should be an in-house distancing strategy.
That means no physical contact, hugging, or kissing, and try to stay six feet apart.
Continuously wash your hands and clean any high touch areas, like refrigerator door handles.Maintain hand hygiene, especially after touching things like phones, refrigerator door handles, and TV remotes.
Dr. Russo said even if you self quarantine for 14 days, are not sharing utensils and disinfecting everything, there's still a chance you could get sick.
"We know that there's people that can become infected that are asymptomatic. So if you go through all these steps it's still possible that someone might have been infected before that 14 day quarantine," he said.
And that could even happen during the quarantine. So the best thing to do is continue social distancing, and stay safe.
