//You can survive winter and not spread Covid-19. Here’s how.

You can survive winter and not spread Covid-19. Here’s how.

Amanda Northrop/Vox

Experts on safer (and riskier) ways to see friends and family, keep kids busy, and give back — in a raging pandemic.

Winter and the holidays can be hard even in typical years: short days, cold winds, and family stress, to name a few. But the ongoing US Covid-19 surge, with more than 200,000 new virus cases reported every day since December 7 (about double what they were a month before), is putting the hallmark activities that help sustain us — holiday gatherings, meals with friends, volunteering, or a visit to see Santa — in more dire limbo.

Despite being more than nine months into the pandemic, figuring out whether and how to approach a previously routine event is still complicated. And the calculus seems to change with new case rates and evolving guidelines — and with our own