Million flyers screened in one day
Sunday’s number a milestone, but it’s less than half pre-virus levels
SILVER SPRING, Md. — The number of passengers screened in a single day for flights in the U.S. topped 1 million for the first time since COVID-19 infections began to spike in March.
The notable milestone, reached Sunday, signifies both the progress made since the darkest days of pandemic for the devastated U.S. airline industry, when fewer than 100,000 people were screened per day in April, and how far it still has to go.
The million-plus passengers screened Sunday compares with 2.6 million on the same day last year, or roughly 60 percent fewer, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
The TSA said that the 6.1 million passengers at U.S. checkpoints the week of Oct. 12 through Oct. 18 was the greatest volume measured since the start of the pandemic.
Vacation plans and business trips were frozen in the spring as millions took shelter. With so little known about the virus, few wanted to board planes or walk through an airport even if they could.
Mccarran International Airport said in a tweet Monday in response to the news, “We’re All In and ready when you’re ready to hit the skies.”
of exposure of the virus among those who can’t work from home. Hourly wage workers are also less likely to feel attachment to a job, making them more likely to search for safer work, he said.
“This is perhaps the most surprising finding,” Roman said. “The people who can least afford to lose their jobs are leaving jobs in higher numbers. But it fits with the story that they feel unsafe healthwise.”
While 65 percent of remote workers say their employers are doing a good job protecting their health, just 50 percent of those working outside the home say that.
The pandemic is weighing heavily on women and people of color, who are most likely to work in essential jobs they can’t do remotely.
Fifty percent of women call the pandemic a major source of stress in their lives, compared with 36 percent of men. Sixty-two percent of Black workers and 47 percent of Hispanic workers say it is, compared with 39 percent of white workers.
Jamelia Fairley, a single mother who works at a Mcdonald’s in Florida, said managers initially told her to make masks out of coffee filters and hairnets. Although she now gets protective gear, she said workers often have to serve customers who refuse to wear masks.
“I feel like they should provide us with better protection by having the masks be mandatory, not just for us but for customers,” said Fairley, who has seen her weekly hours cut nearly in half and has joined a strike to support raising Florida’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Federal labor figures point to a trend of working-age women, particularly Black and Hispanic women, increasingly dropping out of the labor force amid a child care crisis caused by school and day care closures.
Many top companies have responded with an array of programs, such as increased leave, stipends for child care and tutors, but those benefits are not reaching the vast majority of America’s workers.
Only about 1 in 10 say their employers are providing child care facilities, stipends or tutoring services. Only 26 percent say employers are providing extended family leave.
Nearly 7 in 10 workers consider flexibility for caregivers very important. Fewer than half — 44 percent — said their employers were doing a good job of that, though just 18 percent rated employers poorly; 37 percent called the response neither good nor bad.