[tgsovlerkhgsel]

> a pretty reasonable assumption that holidays lead to increased gatherings

Not necessarily. They also removed one big set of gatherings: Work.

Workplaces and the commute to them are massive contributors. Many people are in (loose) contact with many more people at work than at a large Thanksgiving dinner, and contact tracing is a lot more effective for the Thanksgiving dinner (everyone there is a close contact) vs. work ("oh, but they were more than 1.5 meters apart, so it doesn't count" because you can't quarantine everyone in a 100+ people open plan office that you've been saturating with infectious aerosols for 8 hours).

[ncallaway]

I think that's a totally fair point, and a reason that assumption might be incorrect.

To be clear I don't mean "a pretty reasonable assumption" to mean it was exceptionally likely to be true (with, say 95% confidence) in my mind in this it's more like a 65% chance of being true.

I guess I was using it as shorthand for "my prior is >50%"

Anyway, I wouldn't be shocked if that assumption was wrong and if it is, it makes sense that it'd be for the reasons you outline