CDC: Kids Should 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?