In 2020, Thanksgiving was a pivotal moment that set in motion America's winter COVID-19 surge - and this year, cases are once again rising.
Current Covid hotspots include northern states such as Minnesota, Colorado and Vermont, suggesting that cold weather is playing a role in spreading the virus.
But experts say that a winter surge in 2021 is unlikely to be as devastating as it was last year due to widespread vaccinations and booster shots.
To safely gather for the holidays, experts told DailyMail.com they recommend getting vaccinated, utilizing tests, wearing high-quality masks while traveling and maintaining awareness of Covid metrics in one's community.
They also suggest everyone get booster shots - even young adults with no existing health conditions - as a way to cut down the risk of infection as well as transmission of the coronavirus.
Use the map below to see how your county's case rate in the week leading up to Thanksgiving 2021 compares to Thanksgiving 2020.
On Thanksgiving in 2020, the U.S. was facing a rapid increase in Covid cases - reporting about 170,000 new cases a day, compared to 95,000 new cases a day this Thanksgiving
November 2020 marked the start of a devastating Covid surge in the U.S.
Cases rose sharply through that month, with an average of 170,000 new cases recorded each day in the week leading up to Thanksgiving itself.
In November 2021, 'we're in a much better place, simply because we have vaccines,' Dr Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist with the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told DailyMail.com.
The country is reporting about 95,000 new cases a day as of November 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
That's about 45 percent lower than last year's national new case rate.
'But still we're not in a good place,' Mokdad said.
Close to 100,000 new cases a day is far above the rate that the U.S. would need to reach to lift all restrictions, which Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, has said is about 10,000 new cases a day.
Similarly, the U.S.'s current Covid hospitalization numbers are far below last November, but are still much higher than what experts hoped to see after almost a year of widely available vaccines.
About 44,000 Americans are in the hospital with Covid as of November 22, according to the CDC.
That's just over half the number of people hospitalized on Thanksgiving in 2020 - about 84,000.
The vast majority of these patients are unvaccinated. Unvaccinated Americans are about 10 times more likely to be hospitalized with Covid than vaccinated Americans, according to CDC analysis.
As Covid cases rise nationwide, many of the states feeling the brunt of the surge are those located further north.
About 44,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with Covid, compared to about 84,000 on Thanksgiving in 2020. Some states are now seeing record hospitalizations
Michigan, New Hampshire and Minnesota have the highest case rates in the country, according to the November 23 Community Profile Report.
All three states have recorded more than 500 new cases for every 100,000 people in the past week, five times higher than the CDC's threshold for high Covid transmission.
In Minnesota, hospitals are currently seeing their highest Covid patient numbers of 2021.
Some Minnesota school districts have moved classes online or closed school for the full week of Thanksgiving to address the surge.
Vermont, another northern state that was previously considered a Covid success tory, is seeing its highest case rates of the entire pandemic.
Colorado is another state facing concerning Covid case numbers.
'Last year, this was a really bad time. And this year, it's a really bad time,' Dr Jon Samet, dean of the Colorado School of Public Health, told DailyMail.com.
'Our peak of hospitalizations last year was actually December 1. We had 1,847 Coloradans in the hospital. We've been on the rise since September here, and yesterday, that number was 1,565.'
On Thanksgiving in 2020, Covid deaths were also increasing sharply. During the peak of the 2020 winter surge, the U.S. would report over 3,000 deaths a day
Colorado Governor Jared Polis was among the state leaders who announced that all adults in his state
