TSA screens more than 3 million travelers over New Year’s weekend

The holiday weekend saw more than 3 million people pass through airport security checkpoints nationwide despite public health officials’ warnings against travel during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reported screenings of 805,990 people on Friday, 1.19 million Saturday and 1.3 million Sunday. The latter was the single highest checkpoint volume the TSA recorded since the beginning of the pandemic last year, according to TSA reports.

The latest TSA numbers bring the sum of holiday travel, which is considered to have begun Dec. 18, to more than 17.7 million people, far above predictions.

Public health experts have repeatedly warned travel, first for the Thanksgiving holiday and later for Christmas and New Year’s, is likely to spread the virus.

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said Sunday that with increases in the virus getting “out of control in many respects,” it’s too late to clamp down on travel due to how many Americans already traveled abroad for the holidays.

“That’s what we’re concerned about that in addition to the surge, we’re gonna have an increase superimposed on that surge, which could make January even worse than December,” Fauci said Sunday. “I hope not, I hope that doesn’t happen, but that certainly is possible.”

Meanwhile, in his Sunday prayer last weekend, Pope Francis said he was “saddened” by the reports of widespread holiday travel.

“They are good people, but they didn’t think about those who were staying at home, of the economic problems of many people who have been hit hard by the lockdown, of the sick people,” Francis said.