Thanksgiving is a time where many families cherish the time together. Siblings come home from schooling, people don’t have work, and family members all come together. The day after Thanksgiving is known as, “Black Friday,” a day where stores host huge sales on a majority of their items at huge discount. These discounts continue all throughout the weekend following Thanksgiving.

Normally, Thanksgiving comes with little to no health risk, but this year with Covid-19 being in large effect of the year, this would be the exact opposite. Covid-19 has been hitting the United States hard since March of 2020. Right around Thanksgiving time, a second wave of Covid-19  plagued the United States harder than before. 

The thought with Covid-19 numbers and Thanksgiving is, there are a large amount of people meeting with family and friends within a short amount of time, which can lead to a mass amount of people getting the virus. 

There have been about 14.2 million cases of Covid-19 in the United States and about 275 thousand deaths due to the virus. In the United States, roughly 100,000 people have been hospitalized since Thanksgiving time due to Covid-19. 

In Illinois alone, there has been roughly 760 thousand cases and about 14 thousand deaths due to the virus. Following Thanksgiving, there were about 13 thousand new cases of  Covid-19, and about 125 deaths due to it.

Recently, Illinois was moved back into a phase three recovery stage due to the rapidly increasing number of Covid-19 cases. This stage would include the stoppage of indoor sports, a capacity in grocery stores, the closure of indoor restaurants and bars, and the closure of entertainment facilities, like movie theaters and casinos.