Don’t Travel For Thanksgiving, CDC Warns

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An airport employee, seen earlier this year, walks through Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va. On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that Americans should refrain from traveling for the upcoming holiday.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

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Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

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The agency’s recommendation came less than a day after the U.S. marked a grim milestone in its fight to slow the spread of the coronavirus. As of Wednesday, more than 250,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

What’s more, the spread of the disease appears to be exploding in the U.S., with several dozen states shattering records for daily new confirmed cases in the past week alone. The virus appears to be savaging the middle of the country, in particular, with records for new cases per capita being set from Montana to Nebraska.

Roughly 1 million new COVID-19 cases have been recorded in the U.S. in the past week.

The dire numbers already had people reconsidering their Thanksgiving plans before the rollout of the new CDC recommendations, as NPR’s David Schaper noted. AAA estimated that fewer Americans would be traveling for the holiday than last year — though this year’s number still hovers around 50 million people.

• COVID-19
• coronavirus
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention