Page 5 - Florida Sentinel 12-24-21

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Travelers Wait In Long Lines At Crowded Airports And Struggle To Get COVID Tests Before Their Flights
Lines for TSA checks at the Texas airport wrapped around the air- port on Monday.
Travelers should brace for long waits at airports and lengthy traffic on the roads as an estimated 109 million peo- ple are set to travel between December 23rd and January 2nd this year - a 34 percent in- crease from the same time pe- riod in 2020.
Wait times for COVID- testing were four hours long at JFK on Sunday
At Logan International, travelers were advised to take COVID tests before arriving rather than at airport testing centers with wait times up to 5 hours
A dramatic 27.7 million more people than in 2020 will travel 50 miles or more this
holiday season, with eight percent less travelers than the same point in 2019.
Of those travelers, 6.4 mil- lion will be boarding air- planes, more than twice the 2.3 million that did so during the holiday season during the height of COVID in 2020. In 2019, 7.33 million holiday travelers traveled by airline, compared to 6.7 million in 2018 and 6.5 million in 2017.
Over the past three days, the Transportation Security Administration has screened more than two million pas- sengers each day at airports nationwide, double the num- ber of screenings carried out this time in 2020.
Health Officials Share Holiday Safety Tips As Omicron Spreads
ST PAUL, Minn. — There's never a good time to get COVID but getting it a couple of days before Christ- mas can be especially tough. State health officials advise those who test positive Tues- day to cancel upcoming week- end holiday plans.
In fact, Kris Ehres- mann, director of infectious disease for the Minnesota De- partment of Health, says to continue isolating for a total of 10 days. She says this ap- plies to all people who test positive, including those who are caught up on COVID shots.
"You should not be engag- ing for the holidays, which I know is disappointing," Ehresmann said. "The guid- ance for isolating at this point
has not changed for individu- als even if it's a breakthrough illness."
For those who feel well and plan to go to a holiday gathering, MDH says to take a COVID test as close to the event time as possible. Offi- cials say no gathering is risk- free but celebrating with fully vaccinated people is safest.
"It's much better to miss a holiday celebration and not
infect the people that you love than it is to insist on joining them," Ehresmann said. "You still would be eligible to receive gifts that your loved ones may have gotten you. You just have to stay out of circulation."
MDH reports that despite breakthrough cases, the most important tool against COVID is still vaccination, in- cluding boosters. "The vac- cines are highly effective at preventing severe illness and death, and the available data indicates this holds true for the Omicron variant," accord- ing to an MDH press release.
Health officials also rec- ommend avoiding crowds and masking up in public in- door settings such as retail and grocery stores.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2021 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY PAGE 5-A