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Americans in holiday rush despite highest Covid19 death toll in 6 months Across New York City, lines at COVID-19 testing sites wrapped around the block on Wednesday, video on Twitter showed
Record hospitalizations and a surging death toll failed to keep Americans from traveling a day before the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, raising fears that the unchecked spread under way is a prelude to further contagion at Christmastime. Daily U.S. deaths from COVID-19 surpassed 2,000 for the first time since May on Tuesday and hospitalizations reached a record 88,000 on Wednesday as the country recorded 2.3 million new infections in the past two weeks alone. Steep surges in cases typically result in a rising death toll weeks later.
Coronavirus deaths reached 2,157 on Tuesday - one person every 40 seconds - with another 170,000 people infected, as millions of Americans disregarded official warnings and traveled for Thanksgiving. Daliza Rodriguez, a 33-year-old childhood educator, was traveling to Texas from New York's LaGuardia Airport on Wednesday. "We know we're taking a risk but we want to see the family and it has been a long time...so we want to see them and have fun," she said.Nearly 1 million passengers a day have been screened at airport security checkpoints for 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. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged people to keep Thanksgiving gatherings as small as possible and stressed the need to "hang in there a bit longer" on wearing masks, maintaining distance and avoiding crowds, especially indoors...Read More