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(WJZ / CNN) – The coronavirus pandemic is raging in the United States as cases explode and deaths rise. More than 2,100 Covid-19-related deaths were reported on Tuesday, the highest number in a single day since May. In Maryland, it appears to be business as usual for vacation travel.
A new survey from the University of Maryland Medical System has found that four in ten Marylanders do not change their travel plans for Thanksgiving.
The United States has recorded more than 171,000 new cases, Johns Hopkins University reported. A record number of patients are hospitalized at more than 88,000, the highest number of Covid-19 hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic and the 15th consecutive day of record admissions, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
Despite these skyrocketing statistics, millions of Americans are traveling on Thanksgiving to spend the holidays with family and friends. They pack their bags at airports and boarding planes, ignoring advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advising against travel this year.
The United States could see an explosion in Covid-19 infections in the weeks following Thanksgiving, Dr Jonathan Reiner, former White House medical team adviser, told CNN on Tuesday.
“It is potentially the mother of all mainstream events.”
Many health officials believe the Midwest was seeded with Covid-19 last summer from one such event, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota, Reiner said.
“Now imagine that on a large scale – people leaving from all airports in the United States and carrying the virus with them,” he added.
Americans are calling for Covid-19 testing before traveling, but Assistant Secretary of Health Adm. Bret Giroir told a press conference on Tuesday that it didn’t bother, that a test wasn’t necessarily a good one way to determine if an individual was okay. travel, unless they test positive, which in this case means staying home.
A Covid-19 test before traveling is an advantage in that it could alert a person of a positive result, “and that’s a good thing,” he said, but it’s not necessarily an indication of a person’s infection at that time.
For example, if a person is infected with Covid-19 and is tested a day or two later, there may not be enough viral RNA to detect the virus.
So tests like a sunflower for travel won’t work unless they show a positive result and the person stays home as a result, Reiner said.
“What I think I want people to understand, more importantly, is that a negative test today does not mean that you will be negative tomorrow, the next day or the next day,” Giroir told CNN. “This negative test is not a free pass to engage in risky behavior.”
It’s not wrong to take a test, but a negative test “doesn’t give you a pass,” he said.
The United States is “at a critical and very dangerous time in this pandemic where cases are increasing in almost all jurisdictions and our hospital capacity is becoming… this is really in question,” added Giroir.
“It is a dangerous but reversible situation,” he said.
Public health officials, including Giroir, highlighted continued mitigation efforts, such as the use of masks, social distancing, avoiding crowded places and frequent hand washing as a way to control the spread of Covid-19 and possibly lower the curve.
CNN wire
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