COLUMBUS – Millions of Americans are loading up their cars or piling onto planes, preparing to brave a surge in coronavirus cases and high gas prices to visit friends and family over the Thanksgiving holiday period.
Auto club AAA predicts that 48.3 million people, including 2.2 million Ohioans, will travel at least 50 miles from home between Wednesday and Sunday, an increase of nearly 4 million over last year despite sharply higher gasoline prices.
The average price in Ohio on Wednesday was $3.21 a gallon, $1.28 more than in 2020 when Americans stayed home as the COVID-19 pandemic neared its height.
Among Ohio’s neighboring states, prices ranged from $2.97 a gallon in Indiana to $3.60 in Pennsylvania.
The national average price of gasoline was $3.40, according to the AAA.
Confronting a spike in consumer prices, Pres. Joe Biden on Tuesday ordered the release of 50 million barrels of oil from the U.S strategic petroleum reserve, a move intended to contain energy costs.
The number of air travelers this week is expected to approach or even exceed pre-pandemic levels.
Officials at John Glenn Columbus International Airport say Wednesday and Monday will be the heaviest travel days of the holiday weekend.
Vaccinations, infections on the rise
Many of those holiday merry-makers feel emboldened by the fact that nearly 200 million Americans – more than 6 million Ohioans among them — are now fully vaccinated.
But it also means brushing aside concerns about a resurgent virus at a time when the U.S. is now averaging nearly 100,000 new infections a day.
Hospitals in the cold Upper Midwest, especially in northwest Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota, are filled with COVID-19 patients who are mostly unvaccinated.
The number of new daily coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and admissions to intensive-care units in Ohio has increased through the month of November. The 6,143 new cases reported Tuesday was 27% higher than the three-week average.