The US holiday weekend resembles the pre-pandemic period, as experts and the White House remain wary of the virus risk.
Memorial Day has long been understood as the unofficial start of American summer, but in times of pandemic it has also been accompanied by canceled events, bans on mass gatherings, and news about vaccination rates slow down.
Yet this weekend, during one of the country’s busiest traditional travel periods, more than 39 million Americans are expected to bring the sky and the roads, as estimated by AAAcar owners group.
“We’re approaching pre-pandemic numbers,” said Andrew Gobeil, a spokesman for Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. busiest airport in the world. He said on Friday that he expected more than 2 million passengers from Thursday to Wednesday.
“It’s an honest assessment of where we stand,” he said. “Everybody’s pretty nervous.”
Los Angeles International Airport handles about 200,000 passengers a day, about 40% more than last year’s Memorial Day weekend. Heath Montgomery, an airport spokesman, said: “We are not back to normal here, adding that passenger traffic is still down about 25% compared to 2019.
Last year, some experts, including Dan Diekema, an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa, hoped that the holiday weekend would mark the beginning of the end to the threat of the virus in the United States. . “In retrospect, I was too optimistic,” he said in an interview on Friday, adding that he had stopped making predictions. “I could not have imagined the tragedy that would have happened in the past year.”
The virus has continued to spread, as variants emerge that can cause disease even in fully vaccinated people. Again Sub-omicron becomes dominant this week and known cases have increased.
In 2020, as the United States was at its peak of recording 100,000 coronavirus deaths in late May, officials urged Americans to don’t travel on weekend. State reopening is emerging but many parades and other large gatherings have been cancelled. In 2021, the death toll is known to be close to 600,000, but extended availability vaccines, along with federal guidelines that it is safe for fully vaccinated people to remove their masks in most indoor environments, inspiring a return to public gatherings. Some concerns then turned to sold-out hotel rooms, shortages of lifeguards and scarcity chlorine tablets for backyard pools.
This year, Memorial Day observances are not being phased out across the country. In recent weeks, daily confirmed cases in the US have increased and supposedly undercounted. While the new death toll is relatively lowtotal number of known US Covid deaths recently passed one million.
Health officials in the Biden administration continue to warn of risks especially for the more vulnerablebut federal health guidelines have changed focus on the strain on the health care system. Last month, a federal judge struck down Mask regulations on public transport and the country’s biggest airlines were quick to follow suit, ending the requirement to wear a mask almost two years after it was in place.
Only about 62 percent of Americans 18 and older received at least one shot of the vaccine this time last year. And while 73 percent of 18- to 64-year-olds are now completely vaccinationfor most people 65 and older who get vaccinated, according to federal dataThe youngest children were still not eligible for vaccinations and officials were worried about lagging boost rate.
Many governors have stated in recent months that the virus has been, or will soon become, endemic to the United Stateslike flu season with a ongoing or expected presence. “If you believe we are at a point where we would call this endemic, that is not where we want to be,” Dr.
Experts still recommend opting for outdoor gatherings or continuing to wear masks for indoor group settings.
Dr Diekema said: “My views last year may have included to some extent underestimating the virus’ ability to change and adapt quickly. “And overestimate our ability as a society to maintain public health measures.”
