Day before Thanksgiving travel hits highest peak since March

Many Americans flouted holiday travel warnings from public health officials this week, as travel rates on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving reaching its highest level since the coronavirus pandemic was declared in March.

The Transportation Security Administration reported 1,070,967 people crossed TSA checkpoints Wednesday, NBC News reported.

The nearly 1.1 million travelers on the day before Thanksgiving, one of the year’s busiest travel days, were the most passengers screened by the TSA since March 16, when the administration reported 1.25 million passengers at the time.

The data also showed over 1 million people passing through security checkpoints on Nov. 20 and 22.

On Nov. 19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning telling Americans to avoid travel for the holiday, citing an “exponential growth” in COVID-19 cases across the country.

Numerous experts have said that ignoring the warnings would lead to an additional uptick in cases leading into December. However, the virus’s extended incubation period likely won’t reflect such results in data for around two weeks.

The flight-tracking service FlightRadar24 reported more airplanes in the skies at noon Eastern time the Tuesday before Thanksgiving than there were on the same Tuesday in 2018, and eight percent fewer than in 2019.