Summer Travel is Fueling California’s Covid Surge- Labor Day Will be a Big Test

Throughout the summer, travel and get-togethers have been the most significant cause of the spread of the virus. The Democratic National Convention, which ended last week in Chicago, was the cause of at least a dozen policy makers, delegates, and news reporters testing positive for the illness.

Tracy Austin, a Democratic strategist who caught the virus while attending the conversion, said, “It was an amazing time, but the DNCC last week stood for the Democratic National COVID Convention.”

Last week, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said some data suggested a slow progression of the coronavirus infection across the country. However, a dip in the summer surge won’t be noticeable until several weeks of declines have been reported.

The Transportation Security Administration said that June 23 had the most passengers screened in a single day since the agency’s creation. A whopping 2.99 million people screened through TSA in a single day.

The number of viral transmissions at the DNC shows that the most significant risk for infection remains in big indoor gatherings. “That’s going to happen any time nearly 25,000 people are packed into an arena, in hotels, and on shuttle buses for four days, no matter what the occasion is,” said California Democratic Party spokesperson Robin Swanson.

Despite the change in feelings toward masks, they can still be one of the best ways to prevent an illness from spreading at an indoor event.

She also said that she knew a large amount of cases would be ascribed to the event. “You get a lot of people together in an indoor area who are talking and laughing and shouting, which is actually a more efficient way to spread COVID,” Hudson said. “Between all of that … exposure time, definitely, we are certainly going to see COVID.”

“When you are traveling, if you’re going to be in an indoor area with an awful lot of people, to really reduce your your risk of becoming COVID-positive, you really should be wearing a mask. If you’re on a plane, if you’re in an airport, those are the times you really want to make sure that you are wearing a mask,” she added.

The vaccines will also be in most pharmacies by September for anyone wanting to protect themselves from COVID or the yearly flu.

One reason is the emergence of successive hyper infectious coronavirus subvariants; this means that multiple strains of COVID managed to mutate together to create one strong strain.

“Because of that, it just made it much more easy to come into a population where people’s natural and vaccine-induced immunity was at a nadir,” with many people having had their last COVID vaccine more than a year ago.

As of the end of August, California has seen their positive tests come back at a sharp rise at 14.4%. The current peak is even higher than last winter, which is when the cases normally begin to rise.