Flight disruptions continued in the United States on Monday as many began their first voyages in nearly two years, and the country’s foremost epidemiologist, Dr. Anthony S. Fauzi reiterated the possibility of the need for a vaccine for air travel.
At least 2,600 flights were canceled on Monday, including about 1,000 U.S. flights, with the highly contagious Omigron variant of the corona virus sending daily caskets across parts of the United States. Rises to levels The epidemic of last winter is greater than the peak.
Although the cancellations were only a small percentage of the overall flights, the problem threatened to extend the holiday week.
“If you make the vaccine a necessity, it’s another incentive to vaccinate more people,” Dr. Fancy Said On MSNBC on Monday. “If you want to do that on domestic flights, I think it’s something to seriously consider.”
Over the holiday weekend, airlines canceled thousands of flights as the Omicron variant hit flight crews. In all, about 2,300 U.S. flights were canceled on Saturday and Sunday over the Christmas weekend, and more than 3,500 landed worldwide. According to FlightAware, Which provides flight data. On Sunday alone, more than 1,300 US flights and 1,700 additional flights worldwide were canceled.
Despite a number of landings due to bad weather and maintenance issues, many airlines acknowledge that the current wave of corona virus cases has contributed significantly. A JetBlue spokesman said: “The airline has seen a large number of sick calls from Omicron.”
According to FlightAware, 12 percent of JetBlue flights, 6 percent of Delta Airlines flights, 5 percent of United Airlines flights and 2 percent of American Airlines flights were canceled.
United, Delta, American and Southwest stock prices – four The biggest American carriers – were slightly lower on Monday.
This year’s travel has skyrocketed, worsening the situation at airports: about two million people went through screening checkpoints every day last week, According to the Traffic Safety Administration, And Sunday. The number of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was higher than last year, and some figures were higher than the same two years ago, with almost no Americans aware of the spread of a virus around the world.
The Omicron variant, which is now responsible for more than 70 percent of new corona virus cases in the United States, has already helped push the daily case average above 200,000 in the United States for the first time in almost 12 months. According to the New York Times Corona virus tracker.
There is an airline trade group He asked Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should reduce the recommended isolation period from 10 days to a maximum of five days, i.e. 10 days, before returning with a negative test for fully vaccinated staff.
JetBlue spokesman Derek Dombrovsky said: “The CDC’s quick and secure changes will ease the pressure on at least some employees and set up airlines to help millions of passengers return from their vacations.”
However, the flight attendants’ association argued that reducing the recommended isolation hours should be “determined by public health professionals, not airlines.”
Late this weekend there was little to no contact with some of the infections. Alaska Airlines has only made a few cancellations related to employee exposure to the Corona virus, spokeswoman Alexa Rutin said. Nevertheless, according to FlightAvery, 170 flights were canceled during those two days, including 21 percent of its Sunday flights, due to unusually cold and snowy weather in the Pacific Northwest, affecting its hub Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Infection More a Lack Rail and bus workers across the country. In New York City, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority also handles an increase in positive cases among its employees, with 80 percent being vaccinated. On Monday it said the subway service was operating on a normal schedule with scattered exceptions.
“What we as riders can do to reduce the risk to transport workers is to reduce the spread,” said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the MTA’s Permanent Citizens’ Advisory Council. “MTA does what it can with the resources it has.”
Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for the Riders Alliance, a bar association, said: “My feeling is that the MDA is once again making a bad situation better.
