COVID-19 ‘hurricane’ could hit SC beaches as air travel increases in spite of warnings
A hurricane could be coming to the SC coastline, but it won’t be bringing wind and rain.
Instead, doctors warn of “Hurricane COVID” arriving in places that air travelers flock to, possibly bringing the coronavirus with them and the risk of ravaging already struggling hospital systems.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as doctors and hospital systems around the country have been begging Americans for weeks to forgo their traditional Thanksgiving plans and stay home, stay out of crowded places (like airports) and especially stay away from family members at high risk for COVID-19 complications.
In parts of South Carolina, at least, those warnings are going unheeded.
Hilton Head International Airport expects to see one of the state’s smallest drops in travelers. As of Monday, the Transportation Security Administration predicted 1,800 passengers will pass through its single checkpoint and single terminal for departures for Nov. 24-30.
Last year, 2,200 people departed from the airport.
That’s a 17% drop for an airport known for being particularly crowded and chaotic.
The TSA doesn’t track arrivals, just how many people pass through checkpoints, but the agency expects to see similar trends among arrivals as departures, as people head to tourist destinations for the holidays.
“I do believe some of this is attributed to people wanting to get out and travel, and they want to go to the beach,” said David McMahon, TSA’s federal security director for South Carolina. “Hilton Head Airport in Hilton Head by far is doing the best. … That is a pretty rapidly growing airport that again, it’s right on the beach.”
Myrtle Beach also expects to see a large number of travelers leaving, with 9,000 people departing Nov. 24-30 compared to 15,000 last year — a 40% decrease, according to TSA data.
A wider time frame shows an even more crowded picture for Myrtle Beach. Airport spokesman Ryan Betcher said in an email earlier this month that for Nov. 21-29, the airport had 21,090 departing seats scheduled, only a 5% drop from last year’s 22,159 departures.
Charleston International Airport expects about a 42% drop in travelers compared to last year. Columbia Metropolitan Airport and Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport expect even greater drops in traffic, with 58% and 52% fewer travelers for Thanksgiving this year.
“Historically, air travel around the holidays always spikes,” Mike Gula, executive director of Columbia Metropolitan Airport, said in a statement. “This year, we are expecting to see an increase, as people slowly but surely return to the skies, but it will more than likely not be at the rate of past years. The thing we, and I’m sure all airports, want to stress to potential passengers is that air travel is safe and we’re doing everything we can to ensure that when travelers are ready, we’ll be ready to get them there safely and, in true CAE fashion, with ease.”
The only South Carolina airport with zero travelers is the Florence Regional Airport, served only by American Airlines, which halted flights in October due to the pandemic but is currently expected to resume in early January.
Sharp increases in the number of people traveling around the country compared to earlier in the pandemic have horrified the medical community, who fear that their already overcrowded hospitals will face a worse situation than when the pandemic slammed an unprepared United States in March.
On CNN Monday afternoon, ICU doctor Matthew Klee said traveling for Thanksgiving is incredibly dangerous, saying that “Tropical Storm COVID” has quickly become “Hurricane COVID.” Klee works at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. His state has more than 7,000 people testing positive for COVID each day, seven times that of South Carolina despite having a population that is only 14% larger.
South Carolina saw 1,095 new coronavirus cases reported Monday and five new deaths. The state has a 10.7% positivity rate for coronavirus tests.
“No one expects to get COVID,” Klee said, as he begged CNN viewers to not fly this year.
Many parts of his state have few if any beds left to treat COVID patients. It’s a reality that South Carolina might not be far from. The state has neared 75% hospital bed capacity, with 10% of those patients positive for COVID-19.
And it’s not just doctors asking people to be careful this Thanksgiving. Charleston mayor John Tecklenburg on Monday told residents, “We’re in a good spot, so let’s not blow it, y’all.”
SC outpaces US on travel
Last Friday through Sunday, around 1 million Americans per day went through airport checkpoints. Estimates for the rest of the week are difficult to pinpoint, with many people booking and canceling flights at the last minute, a sign of the pandemic’s volatility.
Thanksgiving 2019, in hindsight only a few weeks before the start of the pandemic that has upended the world, saw a record 26 million passengers for Nov. 22-Dec. 2.
McMahon, of the TSA in South Carolina, expects the increase in pandemic travel to continue into the December holiday season, with similar percentages of travelers flocking to airports.
And South Carolina’s beaches in particular will see more tourists as Americans seek more outdoor spaces that are safer for recreation during the pandemic, a trend that began almost as soon as the U.S. started reopening in May.
South Carolina’s coastal airports are outpacing the national average for travel at this stage of the pandemic. Whereas the number of travelers last month nationally hovered between 60-70% less than October 2019, Myrtle Beach’s and Charleston’s departures only stood at 52% and 57% lower.
Myrtle Beach has recovered faster than the rest of the U.S., as well. The airport’s recovery rate for flights in June was 30% compared to 20% for the nation. Those numbers have only sped up since, with a recovery rate of 54% in September, far above 36% for the U.S. average.
A large focus has also been on whether airports and airplanes can stay clean enough as travelers return to the skies.
The pandemic has allowed TSA to implement more touch-free equipment it has been planning for years, such as electronic credentialing that no longer requires security agents to touch a passenger’s ID or boarding pass.
New scanning machines at some airports also eliminate the need for passengers to remove liquids and large electronic devices when going through security.
With all of the safety protocols for cleaning surfaces several times a day and the growing use of anti-microbial sprays, McMahon said, “All of our airports are cleaner today than what they were a year ago.”
But the danger from COVID-19 primarily comes from air particles, which spread in higher and higher densities as more people crowd into a closed-in space. It’s precisely why recirculated air on planes makes flying so dangerous, experts say.
Even with all of the precautions being taken, recommendations against traveling are still in place in many states. And doctors have said for weeks that it’s simply not worth the risk to travel and see family, as hard as that might be, because of the risk of spreading the virus or bringing it back home.
“There is the option to not be interacting with other family members,” Klee said in the CNN interview. Thanksgiving gatherings are “just a perfect spot for COVID to be transmitted between lots of people.”
This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "COVID-19 ‘hurricane’ could hit SC beaches as air travel increases in spite of warnings."
