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(Add Los Angeles International Airport spokesperson’s comment to paragraphs 8-9)
By Maria Caspani and Gabriella Borter
Nov. 25 (Reuters) – Americans have defied calls by state and local authorities to stay home for the Thanksgiving holiday amid the growing coronavirus pandemic, triggering new warnings from health officials with the release of vaccines in a few weeks.
US President-elect Joe Biden has joined calls for safety, urging people to forgo large family gatherings, wear protective masks and maintain their social distancing.
“I know we can and will beat this virus,” Biden said in a speech at a nearly empty theater in Wilmington, Delaware, to a handful of employees and reporters wearing masks and sitting in circles. socially distant on the floor. Biden was not wearing a mask.
“Life will get back to normal. I promise you. It will happen. It will not last forever,” said Biden, a 78-year-old Democrat.
Deaths from COVID-19 topped 2,000 in a single day for the first time since May on Tuesday and hospitalizations reached a record high of more than 89,000 on Wednesday as the country recorded 2.3 million new infections in the two last weeks.
Spiral infections usually lead to an increase in the number of deaths weeks later. Coronavirus deaths reached 2,157 on Tuesday – one person every 40 seconds – with 170,000 more infected, as millions of Americans traveled for Thanksgiving.
Nearly one million passengers a day have been screened at airport security checkpoints over the past week, with Sunday’s total of 1.047 million being the highest number since the early days of the pandemic in mid -March.
“It’s tough. It’s a big public holiday in the United States, Thanksgiving. But with the situation we’re in right now, it just seems like the best solution is to not come to the airport, to not to travel, “he added spokesman Charles Pannunzio told Reuters.
“But if you are traveling, we will do our best to make the trip safer for you.”
‘WE WANT TO SEE THE FAMILY’
Daliza Rodriguez, a 33-year-old early childhood educator, was on his way to Texas on Wednesday from New York’s LaGuardia Airport.
“We know we’re taking a risk, but we want to see the family, and it’s been a long time,” she said.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged people to keep Thanksgiving gatherings as small as possible.
“If we do these things, we’re going to get through it. So this is my last call before the holidays,” Fauci said Wednesday on ABC News’ “Good Morning America”.
Families with college students were forced to assess the risk of reuniting for Thanksgiving.
Francesca Wimer, a student at Northwestern University in Illinois, returned home to Washington with an N95 mask and face shield and checked into a hotel for 14 days, quarantining to protect her parents and grown-ups -parents.
“She was going back to a vulnerable group of people. We didn’t think one test would be enough,” said her mother, Cynthia Wimer.
Luke Burke, a student at Syracuse University in upstate New York, was planning to spend Thanksgiving with his family in New Jersey until his roommate tested positive last week.
“I’m sorry that I can’t be there with my parents, but it’s the right thing to do,” Burke said.
LINES IN NEW YORK
In New York City, lines at COVID-19 testing sites wrapped around the block on Wednesday, according to a video on Twitter. Grouped New Yorkers lined up outside clinics in Astoria, Queens, and Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, from 8 a.m.
MG Robinson, a contract analyst at the New York City Comptroller’s Office, stood in line for seven hours outside a CityMD clinic in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn on Wednesday.
“I woke up at 6 a.m. and got here at 6:30 a.m. … I couldn’t even see the front of the line,” said Robinson, 30, who plans to reunite with a little one. group of family members. on Thanksgiving Day.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who came under fire after telling a local TV station he invited his 89-year-old mother and two daughters to Albany for Thanksgiving, has since turned the tide.
“This is not a normal Thanksgiving, and to act like a normal Thanksgiving is to deny the reality of every health expert in the country,” Cuomo told reporters on Wednesday, urging New Yorkers to stay tuned. House.
The first COVID-19 vaccines could be weeks away with the United States Food and Drug Administration due to Pfizer Inc’s Dec. 10 rule on approval of the vaccine for emergency use.
A second vaccine, made by Moderna Inc, could also be ready for authorization and distribution in the United States within weeks, said U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
The Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed program plans to release 6.4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine across the country once one is approved.
(Reporting by Maria Caspani, Gabriella Borter, Dan Fastenberg, Nathan Layne, Lisa Lambert, Daniel Trotta and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Bill Tarrant, Aurora Ellis and Himani Sarkar)
Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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