The Atlantic

Cancel Thanksgiving

This is a moment for creativity.
Source: H. Armstrong Roberts / Getty / The Atlantic

Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here.

The United States is now in what disaster-preparedness experts once modeled as a worst-case scenario. We are flooded with a highly transmissible virus that causes unpredictable symptoms: sometimes mild, sometimes fatal. The curve is not flat, or even a curve. It’s almost a line that points straight upward. More than 1,000 Americans are dying every day, on average. Soon that number will likely hit 2,000.

In this precarious moment, Americans are planning to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday by traveling and having dinner with . Pandemic models generally account for such behavior in the early stages of an outbreak, before people understand the nature of a virus, but not

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