CBS Urges, “Your Papers, Please” at Thanksgiving

CLAY: We played you NBC News reporting, “Hey, maybe you need a bouncer at the door because inflation costs are up in order to get some of the money to be able to cover the increased cost of a Thanksgiving meal.” How about CBS This Morning? I want to play this for you guys. CBS This Morning said, “Hey, maybe you should be doing covid tests in your garage before your Thanksgiving meals.” This is the insanity we are dealing with. Listen to CBS This Morning.

NATE BURLESON: It might be a difficult conversation before people step into your house to say, “Whoa! Wait a minute. Where’s your card? What’s your status before you step in my home?”

LISA DAMOUR : This is tough because people are all over the map on this and they’re all over the map with their risk tolerance. But the rapid tests have made this a lot easier.

NATE BURLESON: Right.

LISA DAMOUR: Because whatever people’s vaccination status is, we can actually confirm safety on the spot. So if it feels like it’s going to be weird, maybe make it kind of fun. Say, “We’ll start with hors d’oeuvres in the garage. We’ll have drinks, we’ll do the rapid test, and then come on in.” You can make it playful and make it fun and then be able to enjoy the holiday because you’re not worried about safety.

BUCK: It’s playful and fun like the guy running a Soviet gulag showing you your cell is playful and fun. Give me a break. You know, in New York City, Clay, that school kids, for safety reasons, are told to eat their lunch — in the public school system here — outside sitting on the concrete. It’s 37 degrees outside right now! They’re freezing their little buns off because adults are lunatics who cannot think for themselves.

This is what I want to tell them. We’re trying to solve problems. If you have that relative who shows up and is going to do the mask-up-between-bites thing, you triple mask and throw on some goggles. When your relative doesn’t have their double mask on, you say, “How could you pretend to take the virus seriously with only one layer of cloth over your mouth inside at this table, sir? How dare you?”

CLAY: Can you imagine showing up for Thanksgiving dinner, Buck, and having to take a covid test in order to eat Thanksgiving? Or to eat outdoors in the frigid cold as some people are going to do? If you are elderly and you are worried, get your booster shots. We’ve said this. Get your covid vaccine, as 99% of people who are 65 and up have. But at some point in time, when are you going to return to normalcy? I’m not a grandparent, but I can’t imagine isolating myself for two years from my grandkids in order… Look, I hate to say it. I know it’s Thanksgiving. So far as I know, Buck —

BUCK: We’re all going to die.

CLAY: — we’re all going to die.

BUCK: Yep.

CLAY: So at some point, risk is a function of living your life. You can’t… You’re in danger in every single thing you do all day long.

BUCK: Of course. We talk about numbers. It’s not about numbers anymore. But, Clay, can we play out what this CBS discussion they’re having is all about. Your Uncle Phil shows up, and you’re, like, “Phil! Haven’t seen you all year. Great to be here. Just stick this up your nose for a second.” What if it’s positive? You’ll be telling Phil, “Sorry!”

CLAY: Everybody’s going to die, I guess. I don’t know. Gotta kick him out? What if it’s a false positive, your uncle or your aunt or your grandma or grandpa don’t get to hang out with anybody.

BUCK: If he’s asymptomatic and everyone’s vaccinated, “No soup for you!” — apparently. You’re sent out into the cold.

CLAY: And by the way, you don’t care about the flu. You don’t care about a cold or any other communicable disease, which has been spread since time immemorial, since Squanto. Was it Squanto? Squanto and the other Indians and the Bradfords and everybody got together. They were probably spreading some diseases at the first Thanksgiving, because you know what? They’re humans, and that’s what humans do.