Halloween is approaching quickly and there is only a month or so to prepare. Although there are a variety of origin stories for the celebration, now it is mostly involves lots of children and candy. This not an Apple Pie story but rather one of tooth decay and obesity.

Usually the Halloween sugar search comes with warnings about avoiding the creepy guy or the crazy cat lady and to put the ill-gotten gains into one of several bags, friends and known people, probably ok people and people who are going to poison you. It is also best to be secretive about your classification of your neighbours. This night can be an extreme form of stranger danger.

The safe conduct of this search and seizure of candies, and maybe fruit, is under attack from the COVID virus. Now decisions must made about how to give out the candies. A large bowl of loose candy and many hands will spread more than just this virus but having hand sanitizer available might look offensive. Individual bags might seem a bit too cautious and vouchers or gift cards might not be seen so positively either. There are some big problems to solve for this one night. One of the positives will be that almost everyone will be wearing a mask for at least this night,

Halloween is a night of monsters and myths although maybe we should just enjoy it before returning to the real world.

Dennis Fitzgerald — Melbourne, Australia