Though COVID19 vaccinations are ongoing, the United States recorded more than 30 million COVID19 cases on March 29, Monday. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Rochelle Walensky reiterated the need to need to limit travel.
She explained that more people are currently traveling now than during Christmas and New Year’s. She added that “people have taken advantage of what they perceived as a relative paucity of cases”. Dr. Walensky pointed out that COVID19 cases surged following every holiday. She then pleaded to the public saying “please limit travel to essential travel for the time being”.
Daily Cases Are Up
Compared to a week ago, the average COVID19 cases per day increased by 10%. In the past two weeks, the average daily cases increased by 18%. As a silver lining, deaths declined by 29% over the last two weeks.
Despite CDC’s reminders to stop people from leaving their homes, many are traveling. US airlines are now enjoying the pent-up demand from travelers. Many took the opportunity to even have their spring break.
According to Transport Security Administration (TSA), US airports accommodated more than 1 million passengers for 19 days as of Monday. On Monday alone, TSA screened more than 1.4 million travelers. Compared to the same time last year, the agency only screened 154,080 travelers.
Because of these numbers, airlines are expecting to return most of their planes by the second quarter. Another indication that people are looking to travel is the spike in recent bookings. There is now a demand for both domestic and short-haul international trips. The bookings are currently at 90% of its 2019 numbers during the same period.
Vaccination rollout is part of the reason why Americans are now confident to travel. And recently, the US has ramped up its vaccination rollout. The latest supply boost came mostly from Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose COVID19 vaccine. According to US President Biden’s announcement, 90% of Americans are set to be eligible for a vaccine by April. The remaining 10%, on the other hand, are eligible by May.