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Phew! Finally, as the holiday dawns, clarity! You can gather with your family over Thanksgiving if you’re fully vaccinated! But also: COVID cases are skyrocketing and the unvaxxed grandkids might kill you. So maybe stay home. You can eat in a packed restaurant now! The germs can’t get you as long as you’re at your table. But strap that mask on when you dart into a deserted boutique. And mask up when you’re sitting nearly alone in a cavernous office! But hey, be part of the team and come out for drinks to say goodbye to Nicole. ... Welcome to the season of COVID confusion. (Teitell, 11/23)

Anyone with symptoms “that could be COVID or could be flu” should skip Thanksgiving get-togethers, even if they’ve been vaccinated, city public health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said Tuesday. And those who aren’t fully vaccinated “should think about not gathering at the holidays,” or at least get tested beforehand “just to keep the risk for everybody down, and not accidentally introduce COVID into your holiday situations,” she said in an online message. (Byrne, 11/23)

This year’s Thanksgiving holiday features one enormous difference from last year’s: Vaccinations. Fortunately, the Covid-19 vaccine became available earlier this year, and by now, about half of Georgians have received the shots. Vaccinations have significantly lightened the mood around the country in regard to the virus, though Covid cases have begun to rise again. Two-thirds of Americans plan to see family or friends from outside of their household for Thanksgiving, regardless of vaccination status, according to this week’s Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index. (Miller, 11/23)

No one really wants this job, but millions of households may need their own Thanksgiving bouncer. The cover charge is a negative COVID test, done ahead of arrival or outside the front door. Normalizing rapid tests is a practical way to help extended families feel a little more normal around the holiday dinner table. (Talev and Reed, 11/23)

Anyone who received a Covid vaccine in the earliest stages of the rollout should register for their booster shots because “there’s probably more infection happening among the vaccinated population” than the U.S. is currently monitoring, Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday. The effectiveness of Covid vaccines is proven to diminish over time, and Gottlieb said breakthrough infections are likely to occur in individuals almost a year removed from becoming fully immunized. But boosters offer an “almost immediate” effect of restoring the antibody protection offered by vaccines to their original levels, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner noted. (Towey, 11/22)

As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.1 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 773,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering. Just 59.2% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Shapiro, 11/24)

Top U.S. infectious disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday the vast majority of Americans who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 should receive a booster shot, and that an additional dose could eventually become the country's standard for determining who is fully vaccinated. Fauci and other disease experts have said they expect that COVID-19 will transition this spring from a pandemic phase in the United States to an endemic disease, meaning that the virus will continue to circulate at a lower level, causing smaller, less disruptive but still significant outbreaks in the coming years. (Gershberg and Steenhuysen, 11/23)

In January 2020, computational biologist Trevor Bedford told STAT’s Helen Branswell about the then-new coronavirus: “If it’s not contained shortly, I think we are looking at a pandemic.” Talk about a prediction. Last week at the 2021 STAT Summit, Branswell again caught up with Bedford, a scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and an expert on viral evolution and epidemiology. They talked about the future of the coronavirus and antigenic drift (essentially, whether the virus mutates in ways that escape the protection generated by vaccines or earlier infections), as well as what’s in store for flu season, and what might lie ahead with the next pandemic. (Joseph, 11/24)