Millions Ignore Warnings, Take to Skies and Highways for Turkey Day

With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to surge in a multitude of locales around the nation, the CDC and other health experts have pushed for Americans to be extra cautious in the days surrounding Thanksgiving.

A great many organizations and local leaders have proclaimed that traveling or mixing households on Turkey Day could lead to a major uptick in the spread of the deadly virus in the coming weeks – which would royally roil any and all Christmas plans that our nation may have had.

Still, a great many Americans chose to ignore these warnings and travel anyway.

About 1 million Americans a day packed airports and planes over the weekend even as coronavirus deaths surged across the U.S. and public health experts begged people to stay home and avoid big Thanksgiving gatherings.

And the crowds are only expected to grow. Next Sunday is likely to be the busiest day of the holiday period.

To be sure, the number of people flying for Thanksgiving is down by more than half from last year because of the rapidly worsening outbreak. However, the 3 million who went through U.S. airport checkpoints from Friday through Sunday marked the biggest crowds since mid-March, when the COVID-19 crisis took hold in the United States.

In some states, there could be legal repercussions for these holiday gatherings.

Oregon’s governor, for instance, has suggested that residents call the police on their neighbors, should their Turkey Day celebrations be too large.