Public health officials are alarmed by spiking air travel rates, warning that Spring Break travel is premature at this stage in the vaccination effort. The winter COVID-19 surge was driven by holiday travel, and doctors worry that fair weather and vaccine progress could convince vacationers the pandemic is over just as variants loom, CNBC reports.

Air travel rates have reached their highest levels in a year, with one million TSA screenings per day since Thursday. That’s not as high as it was before the pandemic, but it is enough to concern health officials.

“I’m pleading with you, for the sake of our nation’s health,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday. “Cases climbed last spring, they climbed again in the summer, they will climb now if we stop taking precautions when we continue to get more and more people vaccinated.”

The U.S. continues to have an abnormally high number of cases, and CDC numbers show barely a tenth of the population vaccinated. With declining testing, the threat of vaccine-resistant strains remains largely unknown.

“With the coming warmer weather, I know it’s tempting to want to relax and to let our guard down, particularly after a hard winter that sadly saw the highest level of cases and deaths during the pandemic so far,” Walensky said.

Despite the rollout of vaccines in many parts of the world, the fight against Covid-19 is far from over
Despite the rollout of vaccines in many parts of the world, the fight against Covid-19 is far from over AFP / Frederic J. BROWN

Many Americans have scaled back or canceled travel plans. Several colleges canceled spring break or took special measures to try and stop students from traveling.

Vaccination efforts, meanwhile, continue to ramp up. Production exceeded Joe Biden’s campaign promise of 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days, and officials now look to distribution as the main bottleneck.

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