About 1 million Americans a day packed airports and planes over the weekend even as coronavirus deaths surged across the US and public health experts begged people to stay home and avoid big Thanksgiving gatherings.

And the crowds are only expected to grow. Next Sunday is likely to be the busiest day of the holiday period. The number of people flying for Thanksgiving is down by over half from last year. But, the 3 million who went through US airport checkpoints from Friday to Sunday marked the biggest crowds since mid-March, when the COVID-19 crisis took hold in the US.