Trick-Or-Treating COVID-19 ‘Risk Map’ Offers Halloween Suggestions for Boise

A Zoom costume party is lame. Having a scary movie on Zoom is lame. Pretty much anything that involves video conferencing is lame at this point. But is that how we're doomed to spend 2020? 

The Halloween Costume Association, Hershey and Harvard Global Health Institute have teamed up and are looking into their crystal ball to predict what Halloween will look like across the United States. They're doing that by sharing a map of the COVID-19 risk level in every county in America. Each county is assigned a green, yellow, orange or red zone based on how prevalent the spread of the novel coronavirus is that area. Based on those color codes, they make recommendations on how to safely enjoy the Halloween.

Both Ada and Canyon County fall into their "Orange Zone" where traditional door to door Trick-Or-Treating is not recommended. Instead they provide these suggested ways of celebrating Halloween.

Trick-Or-Treat in Reverse

With this concept kids still dress up in their Halloween costumes but rather than going house to house they set up shop in their front yards or driveways. Their buckets can be placed at least six feet from them so that adults can drive or walk by to drop off sweet treats.

Trick or Treat Drive By

Pile your costumed family into the car and take a ride over to your child's friends homes to quickly drop off candy or other treats.

Costume Week

Apparently the folks behind this website and I think the same way because I already informed Marco that I fully plan on dressing up in a different costume each day of the week leading up to Halloween. That's exactly this concept. Do everything you possibly can in costume for the entire week.

Neighborhood Candy Hunt

If your neighborhood is active on Next Door that might be a great place to start putting together a treasure map with piles of candy hidden throughout the subdivision.

Neighborhood Pub Crawl

For this 21+ crowd, rather than crawling busy bars in Downtown Boise...set up a tailgate style, physically distanced drink station in your driveway.

Are you into any of these ideas or would you rather do a traditional Trick-Or-Treat/Trunk-Or-Treat while following some common sense safety guidelines?

According to Good Housekeeping, the biggest safety issue with Trick-Or-Treating in a COVID-19 world doesn't really have anything to do with picking up the candy itself. A doctor they interviewed explained it has more to do with the size of the group you're trick-or-treating with and how long you're spending with them. The longer you're less than six feet from someone, the greater the risk of coronavirus transmission. It's recommended that you keep trick-or-treat groups limited to 3-4 kids, preferably from the same household.

If you do do want to trick-or-treat and are nervous that COVID-19 might be hanging on to candy wrappers, you may not have to go as far as disinfecting every individual treat in your child's pillowcase. Good Housekeeping's expert said if you quarantine the candy for at least 72 hours, you should be good to start chowing down.