Halloween Rebounds with More Laughter as COVID Cases Fall

10/29/2021 By Luda Tang

With the general decline of Coronavirus cases in the U.S., people are more excited and less worried about Halloween this weekend. Pumpkin patching, door-knocking, and trick-or-treating are back on this holiday’s events . 

These outdoor activities are also encouraged by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But they still advise people to keep sanitizing their hands, using masks and avoiding crowded, poorly ventilated places. 

Halloween participation this year is rebounding even though still short of pre-pandemic levels, according to the new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. 35% of Americans plan to hand out candy this Halloween, a number lower than 42% in 2019 but higher than the 25% mark seen in a separate NORC survey in 2020, while 16% said they indeed take their kids trick-or-treating, increasing 4 percent from last year. 

The revival of Halloween can’t do without the downward trend of infections in the U.S., the average 73, 000 new cases per day compared with 173,000 in mid-September. Also, with the statistic that 58% of the population, around 191 million people, in the United States are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Halloween festivities are guaranteed to certain degree. 

Lots of families didn’t do much for the holiday in 2020 when parades, parties and haunted houses got canceled. So they’ve been trying to make up for it this fall

“We did a pumpkin patch and we had a little Halloween get-together at our house with other little kids. At this age they need to be playing with other kids, and they need the socialization aspect,” Angela Montierth of Sandy, Utah, said at a trick-or-treat event at Discovery Gateway Children’s Museum in nearby Salt Lake City.