The United States of America passed another milestone on Monday regarding COVID-19; crossing 30 million COVID-19 cases.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked the Americans to please limit their travel during a briefing at the White House regarding COVID-19.
Travel exacerbates the spread of COVID-19, stated Walensky.
She further stated that more travel-bound journeys are reported in this spring break than ever during the pandemic including the Thanksgiving, New Year, and Christmas holidays. People have started to take advantage of the relaxed restrictions after a relative decline in the cases and went for holidays.
Walensky pleaded with Americans to limit travel to only essential traveling for the time being as the country is witnessing another surge in COVID-19 cases during the spring break. She said that the pandemic is far from being over.
There has been almost a 10% increase in daily cases as compared to the data of last week.
The US airport passenger counts have topped almost 1 million a day during March, according to the Transportation Security Administration screening statistics. The passenger screening used to top 2 million a day on an average day before the pandemic but it fell below 90,000 in April 2020 and did not top 1 million until mid-October.
The CDC has advised the general public not to travel during pandemics; now it has extended the recommendation for people who have been vaccinated as well.
As the risk of getting and spreading COVID-19 during travel is on a high gradient, it is advised that the vaccinated people should take all the CDC-recommended precautions before, during, and after travel and it is more recommended to refrain from leisure/holiday travel at the moment, said Caitlin Shockey, the spokesperson for the CDC.
The CDC is working on vaccinating more people, but at the same time observing preventive measures such as pre and post-travel testing and post-travel self-quarantine will help in preventing the spread of Covid-19.
The CDC does not plan to impose more restrictions but it does have updated the travel recommendations for fully vaccinated people as the number of vaccinated individuals rises, the world still has to endeavor how it really works.
