permission to print image: Gale
When COVID-19 took over the world early last year, everyone was forced to stay inside the majority of time. But as time has passed, many people have become more relaxed with COVID restrictions and have started doing things, like traveling, that they never would have done last March.
People should not be traveling right now. A lot of people seem to think that because traveling is allowed, it’s smart to do, but COVID-19 is still very active, especially in the U.S.
Not only is it active, it’s also deadly. There have been about 10,000 deaths because of COVID-19 almost every day in January, according to Statista.
The vaccine has made many worry less about the spread of the virus, but it’s still a major concern. People in the U.S. traveling over winter break and planning to travel over spring break are part of the problem.
The U.S. has had not only the most cases of COVID-19, but also the most deaths from it, according to Worldometer.
Many people defend their trips by saying that they would know if they had COVID or that they got tested before they left. But this isn’t a foolproof method.
There are people who are asymptomatic and have contracted the virus, but don’t show any symptoms; asymptomatic people can still spread the virus. Getting tested doesn’t completely solve the problem though. Tests can only say if the person has COVID-19 at that specific moment, but not if they will contract it at the airport or any time during the trip.
Both unknowingly having the virus (due to being asymptomatic) and contracting it after testing negative can lead to infecting new people. This chance is much worse when traveling to new places, especially foreign places that have been less affected by the virus.
People who are traveling while having the virus could unknowingly infect a huge number of people in areas that are coming back to life and moving past the virus, due to how the country handled it last year.
Traveling right now, with all its dangers, is not worth the risk and it endangers many people in the process.
