The Labor Day weekend is one final summer getaway for a lot of people who have been staying home for months and are eager to hit the road.
Doctors are concerned people might let their guards down and COVID-19 cases could spike again.
"We don't want to see a repeat of the surges that we have seen following other holiday weekends,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
If the traffic jam on I-5 in Pierce County on Friday was any indication, people cannot wait to leave town for Labor Day. During a pandemic, the road trip is a top choice.
The Port of Seattle said there was a bump in air travel heading into the Labor Day weekend, with passenger levels slightly higher than recent weeks, but traffic is still way down compared with pre-COVID.
This all comes as a new forecast by the UW Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation warns of potentially hundreds of thousands more COVID deaths by the end of the year if precautions ease.
In a worst-case scenario, assuming mask usage stays the same and social distancing rules relax, the U.S. coronavirus death toll could reach 620,029 people by the end of the year, the institute said.
In a best-case scenario, with near universal mask use and stricter social distancing, U.S. deaths would reach 288,381.
In a most-likely scenario, with precautions remaining the same, more than 410,000 Americans could die of COVID, the UW experts warned.
