Passengers arrive for American Airlines flights at O’Hare International Airport on February 5, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images
The United States could see another increase in coronavirus – even as vaccines against Covid-19 grow rapidly across the country – as states relax restrictions and more Americans travel for spring break, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Monday.
“With the warm weather coming, I know it’s tempting to want to relax and let our guard down,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walenksy said in a news briefing Monday. “Especially after a hard winter that has unfortunately seen the highest level of cases and deaths during the pandemic so far.”
The Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, found more than 1.34 million people on Sunday, 86,000 more than the same day a year ago, immediately after the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic.
TSA projections exceeded 1 million every Thursday, hitting the best stretch of a year. As air travel far exceeds 2019 levels, more Americans are returning to heaven, despite guidance from the CDC’s warning against non-essential travel, even for those who are fully vaccinated.
Although many colleagues in the United States have reduced their spring breaks in an effort to reduce partying and infections, top Biden officials are still worried about travelers who “enjoy maskless spring festivities,” Walensky said. .
“I beg you, for the good of our nation’s health,” Walenksy told a news conference Monday. “Cases went up last spring, went up again in the summer, will go up now if we stop taking precautions when we continue to vaccinate more and more people.”
Even with declining infections and a rapid spread of the vaccine, the United States continues to report a dangerous base of high daily cases that could reverse if Americans let their guard down, senior Biden officials warned. About 37.5 million people, about 11 percent of the U.S. population, are fully vaccinated in the United States so far, according to the CDC.
The United States has come a long way since the beginning of January, when it reached a peak of just over 250,000 new cases daily, based on an average week. The nation now reports a daily average of 53,670 new infections in the last week, down 10% from a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
– Leslie Josephs of CNBC and the Associated Press contributed to this report.