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- Three times more COVID-19 cases were recorded during this year's Labor Day compared to last year's, while deaths from COVID-19 were up almost two-fold.
- The hike in cases came as scores traveled the country for the holidays, with the TSA reporting 5.2 million travelers over the holiday weekend.
- More than 100,000 people have been hospitalized daily from COVID-19 over the past week.
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Three times more COVID-19 cases were recorded during this year's Labor Day compared to last year, while deaths from COVID-19 were up almost two-fold, according to The New York Times COVID-19 tracker.
Seventy-six thousand COVID-29 cases were recorded on Labor Day this year, compared to 25,000 last year, while 506 deaths were recorded compared to 263 the same day last year. And the difference may be even starker, with The Times saying many states did not reveal COVID-19 statistics on Labor Day.
Hospitalizations year over year were also up 150%. There were 98,600 compared to 39,000 the year before, according to the tracker.
This spike in hospitalizations is putting the US health system under strain. On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services reported 75% of hospital beds were in use, and COVID-19 patients took up one-third of all Intensive Care Unit beds.
The hike in cases came as scores traveled the country for the holidays. The Transportation Security Administration reported 5.2 million travelers over the holiday weekend – despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warning people against traveling over the holidays – whether they were vaccinated or not.
"We have actually articulated that people who are fully vaccinated and who are wearing masks can travel," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing last week, adding that "with disease transmission right now, we would say that people need to take their own - these risks into their own consideration as they think about traveling."
The US is struggling to contain a surge in the Delta variant, with a massive increase in hospitalizations and deaths, especially among the unvaccinated. According to the NYT tracker, more than 100,000 have been hospitalized daily from COVID-19 over the past week in numbers not seen since February.
