You might have missed it, but the CDC published a handy-dandy party-planning checklist, for your New Years’ Eve party planning needs, and for any other socially safe event you might like to host for your friends and loved ones. The important thing is to have fun — and don’t kill grandma!

That’s the CDC’s job

The CDC really outdid itself this time. THREE “universals!” Universal pre-event testing, universal masking, and universal post-event testing. Sounds like fun! I think they’re floating “universal” as a possible sporty new replacement for the oppressive and widely-hated old term, “mandatory.”

As you can see, you have a LOT of work to do before you throw any dinner parties. You’ll need to stock up on rapid tests so you can easily enforce universal post-event testing. Nobody leaves without a test! The sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll be all done and ready to party.

You might be thinking that asking for your friends’ vaccine pass at the door, handing out mandatory face masks, testing kits, making them go outside, and requiring sign-ins for contact tracing could be a party downer, but you’re not thinking right. Have fun with it! It could be kind of like a non-anonymous version of Eyes Wide Shut. Of course, that one didn’t turn out too well and somebody died. But you get the idea.