The Transportation Security Administration screened more than three million people over the weekend, despite advisement from health officials not to travel.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged people not to travel for Thanksgiving, citing fears that holiday celebrations could further spread the coronavirus amid a sharp rise in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Despite the advisory, the number of travelers on Friday and Sunday eclipsed 1 million people for only the second and third times since mid-March.
On Friday, TSA screened 1,019,836 people, then screened 984,369 on Saturday and 1,047,934 on Sunday. The only day, dating back to mid-March, where TSA screened more people in any one day than they did on any day this weekend, occurred last month. On Oct. 18, 1,031,505 were screened by the TSA.
Over this same three-day stretch in 2019, TSA averaged 2,355,435 people checked.
“More than 1 million COVID-19 cases were reported in the United States over the last 7 days,” the CDC wrote in a statement issued last Thursday, a week before Thanksgiving. “As cases continue to increase rapidly across the United States, the safest way to celebrate Thanksgiving is to celebrate at home with the people you live with.”
Last week, AAA predicted 50 million people in the U.S. will travel for the holiday, down 10% from 2019.
In the U.S. to date, there have been more than 12 million COVID-19 diagnoses and more than a quarter-million deaths from the virus, according to the John Hopkins University coronavirus tracker.
