Last week the United States surpassed 13 million cases and after the Thanksgiving holiday, cases are likely to soar even higher. For weeks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged the public to not travel for the holiday but according to reports, about 6 million travelers still made their way through airport security checkpoints.
While the U.S. is currently averaging about 160,000 new cases each day, it is likely that this number will change in the coming weeks due to holiday travel. Dr. Jonathan Reiner explains that infections contracted from Thanksgiving are “going to show up in three weeks and are going to show up in deaths over Christmas and New Year’s and are going to spread in every state.”
Unfortunately due to the coronavirus' incubation period, Thanksgiving-related infections may appear in the first week of December at the earliest and will continue to pop up in the weeks that follow. Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institution of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says that “we may see surge upon a surge”, also adding that he doesn’t expect to see any looser restrictions or travel advisories for the rest of the holiday season.
The reality may be that coronavirus isn’t going anywhere for a while, but this doesn’t have to leave us feeling completely hopeless. Vaccines for the virus are looking very promising and could be available by mid-to-late December for high-priority people, says Dr. Fauci. On top of this, we all can continue to wear our masks, social distance, wash our hands and keep getting tested to stay healthy and slow the spread as much as possible.