US air travel after Thanksgiving hits highest level since March

Washington, Dec 1
Air travel in the US hit the highest level since mid-March following the recent Thanksgiving holiday amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said.

"TSA officers screened 1,176,091 individuals at checkpoints on Sunday, Nov. 29. It's the highest number since mid-March," Xinhua news agency quoted TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein as saying in a tweet on Monday.

In comparison, last year 2,882,915 people were screened the Sunday after Thanksgiving, she said, noting that the volume in 2019 still remained the highest ever in TSA history.

Despite the lighter-than-usual Thanksgiving travel, the number was a matter of concern among public health officials and experts, who had urged Americans to refrain from travelling for the holiday and warned against traditional gatherings with families and friends.

As air travel hits the highest level since mid-March, hospitalisations of Covid-19 patients reached an all-time high of 93,238 on Sunday, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In its latest update on Monday, the the Covid Tracking Project said that the all time high hospitalisation figure on Sunday surpassed the previous day's record of 91,63.

In recent months, Covid-19 hospitalizations have gone up on a daily basis across the country, currently the worst-hit in the world.

On Tuesday, the Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering revealed that the country's overall caseload and death toll stood at 13,536,216 and 267,987, respectively.

The two tallies are the highest in the world.