Will It Be Safe to Trick-Or-Treat in Black Hawk? Bremer? Fayette?

With fall officially here now, trick-or-treat season is coming up! Some of us (ahem, me...) are already on their second bag of Halloween candy. But with the looming threat of a global pandemic, will it be safe to have your kids participate in trick-or-treating in 2020? When I think about it, my gut tells me, 'YES. It's outdoors... they wear masks...' But there's still the threat of infection or spreading infection, right? It may one of those fluid situations that varies county by county in Iowa. Now, there's a website that can help you. Created by Hershey's, Halloween 2020 aims to help parents decide what to do on October 31, 2020. You can break down county-by-county COVID totals (they're current totals, no way to know what 10/31 will look like yet), and made you decision that way - assuming the city you're in doesn't make the choice for you.

Each county is a color code. They are: GREEN, YELLOW, ORANGE and RED. As you might figure, the colors indicated increasing urgency with 'red' essentially meaning you might want to have a Zoom trick-or-treat, and green meaning go for it! If, if September 22 was Halloween, how would counties in Northeast Iowa fare? Let's look:

Benton: Orange

Black Hawk: Orange

Bremer: Red

Buchanan: Orange

Butler: Orange

Chickasaw: Red

Fayette: Orange

Grundy: Red

Tama: Orange

Essentially orange, the most common color for NE Iowa, indicates we should have a 'drive by' trick-or-treat, or do it all in reverse, meaning you get the kids in their costume, then you hang out with 'em in the front yard as neighbors walk or drive by and deliver candy. But remember, it's only September. And, this is only one candy company suggesting.

Access all the info here.