U.S. airport traffic on the rise despite travel warnings

SAN RAMON, CALIF. — More than 1 million people have passed through U.S. airport security checkpoints in each of the past two days in a sign that public health pleas to avoid holiday travel are being ignored, despite a surge in COVID-19 cases.

It marks the first time U.S. airports have screened more than 1 million passengers since Nov. 29. That came at the end of a Thanksgiving weekend that saw far more travel around the country than had been hoped as the weather turned colder and COVID-19 cases were already spiking again.

Now, some hospitals are being overwhelmed amid the largest outbreak of COVID- 19 in the U.S. since March, when most Americans were ordered to stay home and avoid interactions with other households.

The seven-day rolling aver- age of newly reported infec- tions in the U.S. has risen from about 176,000 a day just before Thanksgiving to more than 215,000 a day. It’s too early to calculate how much of that increase is due to travel and gatherings over Thanksgiving, but experts believe they are a factor.

Although lockdowns are no longer in effect in many parts of the country, stay-athome orders have returned in some areas in effort to contain the virus. Nearly 99% of California’s population of roughly 40 million people, for instance, has been told to remain at home except for essential work, shop- ping and exercise.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued an advisory declaring “postponing travel and stay- ing home is the best way to protect yourself and others from COVID-19.”

Nevert eless, about 1.07 million people passed through the security check- points at U.S. airports on Friday and again on Saturday, according to the Transporta- tion Security Administration. Saturday’s volume was down 57% from the same time last year, the smallest year-overyear decline in daily traffic at U.S. airports since Nov. 22 as people began their Thanks- giving getaways.

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