Over two million people took flights across US in weekend before Christmas, despite Covid warnings

About 1.07 million people passed through security checkpoints at US airports on Friday

More than two million people have flown through American airports over the weekend before Christmas, despite warnings from public health officials to avoid travelling for the holidays amid the coronavirus pandemic.

About 1.07 million people passed through the security checkpoints at US airports on Friday and again on Saturday, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

The alarming numbers mark the first time US airports have screened more than one million passengers since 29 November, around Thanksgiving celebrations, despite a surge in Covid cases.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has advised Americans to postpone travel and stay home as the “best way to protect yourself and others from Covid-19”.

“The safest way to celebrate the winter holidays is to celebrate at home with people who live with you," the agency said, warning: “Travel may increase your chance of spreading and getting Covid-19.”

Cases, hospitalisations, and deaths have all jumped across the country in the fortnight following Thanksgiving, when at least 6.6 million people flew across the US in a seven-day period.

While it is too early to calculate how much of the increase is due to travel and gatherings over Thanksgiving, experts believe they are a factor.

US public health officials fear that travel and gatherings throughout the Christmas holidays will only worsen the spread of the virus, which has currently led to the death of more than 318,000 Americans.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, has consistently warned of the dangers of mixing even with small households across the holiday season.

Earlier this month, the doctor told CNN that the spread over Christmas may “be even more compounded because it’s a longer holiday” saying the country was facing a “critical time”.

“I think it can be even more of a challenge than what we saw with Thanksgiving,” Dr Fauci said.  

“So I hope that people realise that and understand that as difficult as this is, nobody wants to modify, if not, essentially shut down, their holiday season.”

Amid the Chrtistmas holiday season, AAA projects about 85 million people will travel between 23 December and 3 January, most of them by car,  which still marks a drop of nearly one-third from last year. 

The surge comes just as the first people across the US began receiving the Pfizer Covid candidate last week after the jab was given final approval by the US Food and Drug Administration.

However, the majority of US residents are not expected to receive the vaccine until spring 2021, and experts have warned that distribution won’t stop the current surge in deaths as a result of the virus.

Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, has warned that the US is likely to see daily coronavirus deaths exceed the toll of 9/11 for up to three months despite the vaccine approval.

“The reality is the vaccine approval this week's not going to really impact that I think to any degree for the next 60 days,” Mr Redfield previously said of the virus’s toll.

The seven-day rolling average of newly reported infections in the US has risen from around 176,000 a day just before Thanksgiving to more than 215,000 a day, with almost 18 million having been infected with the disease.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press