Some travelers have landed in popular spring break destinations like Florida, where local officials say the vacationers have been more than they can handle.
On Saturday, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber declared a state of emergency and set a curfew, telling CNN too many people were coming "without the intention of following the rules, and the result has been a level of chaos and disorder that is just something more than we can endure."
Saturday night, hundreds of mostly maskless people remained in the streets well after the 8 p.m. ET curfew. With sirens blaring, police opened fire with pepper balls — a chemical irritant similar to paint balls — into the crowd, causing a stampede of people fleeing, video from CNN affiliate WPLG shows.
Florida has so far reported the highest number of cases of the B.1.1.7 variant — which experts say is highly contagious and potentially more deadly — in the country, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"I wish that folks would at least mask up," emergency physician Dr. Megan Ranney told CNN Sunday, referring to the spring break crowds. "I expect that very few of those young adults have been vaccinated and watching them gather together in those crowds, even outside, gives me fear that they're going to bring that B.1.1.7 variant back to their home state and spread it."
Other experts have voiced the same concern, warning all the returning vacationers could help fuel Covid-19 surges in other parts of the country, especially now that vaccination numbers are still so low.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently continues to recommend that Americans delay travel. And earlier this month, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky warned that every time travel escalates, a spike in infections tend to follow, citing July 4, Labor Day and the winter holiday season.
"We are very worried about transmissible variants. A lot of them have come through our travel corridors, so we're being extra cautious right now with travel," Walensky had told CNN.
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