Reported COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have increased dramatically since this time last year, and so did air travel over Labor Day weekend.
The Transportation Security Administration processed over 125% more travelers on Friday through Monday compared to last year, according to the agency's data. Over 7.3 million travelers were processed at checkpoints in 2021, while about 3.2 million travelers were processed last year during the same four days last year.
No coronavirus vaccines were approved for emergency or full use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration during Labor Day weekend in 2020, whereas three are now. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 62.3% of Americans over the age of 12 were fully vaccinated as of Tuesday afternoon.
Still, outside of clinical trials, children under the age of 12 aren’t eligible to receive the vaccine, and just over half of the country (53.2%) was fully vaccinated as of Tuesday afternoon. The agency last week advised against unvaccinated people traveling over the long weekend, as previous holiday weekends led to spikes in cases.
The U.S. averaged 127,100 new reported cases over the seven-day stretch ending on Labor Day, compared to 38,953 at this time last year. Public health officials have attributed the increase due to the spread of the highly contagious delta variant, and the late-summer surge in cases across the country coincided with record-setting July 4 travel.
Over 7.9 million Americans flew between the Friday before and the Monday after Independence Day. COVID-19 symptoms can take up to two weeks to manifest in infected individuals, and the U.S. experienced a 26.5% increase in the seven-day average of new cases two weeks after July 4. Three weeks after the holiday, cases nearly doubled, as the U.S. averaged 58,647 new cases over the seven days ending July 25 compared to 29,412 on the seven days ending July 4.
Whether the U.S. experiences a similar surge remains to be seen.
The U.S. is also more vaccinated now than it was then, and the summer spike in infections has also led to an increase in natural immunity. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed the U.S. averaged fewer full vaccinations over the seven days ending on Labor Day (229,712) than any point in the last month, during which vaccination rates have increased amid the delta variant’s surge. The U.S. has administered over 23 million doses since Aug. 4, when the country’s seven day average of new cases surpassed 100,000 for the first time since February.
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