Nashville International Airport sees thousands over Labor Day as Covid in Tennessee soars

By TOSIN FAKILE

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    NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) — The surge in COVID-19 cases we are seeing here in Tennessee and across the country isn’t stopping people from taking to the skies this Labor Day holiday weekend.

BNA says this Labor Day weekend the numbers are slightly down from the same time in 2019, but its about twice as high as 2020.

The airport said there have been more than 88,000 departing screened passengers at BNA between Thursday and Sunday. This, as Tennessee, added over 6,600 new Covid cases and Nashville over 5,600.

The surge in cases brought mixed reactions from passengers taking off at BNA.

“It’s a little bit scary. So hopefully all will go well,” Rebecca Alderson from Bowling Green, Kentucky said. She said she’s a little nervous about flying to Nevada this holiday.

“This is our first trip but because so many people haven’t been vaccinated, it’s a little scary. But I have been fully vaccinated. When we booked the trip, it was when back in early summer and everything had calmed down. The Delta variant had not surged,” Alderson said.

Damian Rivera on the other hand isn’t as reserved about flying.

“With everything going on, I’m just trying to keep whatever I can do to keep traveling and getting out and about,” Rivera said.

Rivera came to Nashville from Florida for the US Qualifier World Cup match. News4 asked if he was nervous about flying and being at packed soccer game with so many people

“It was a good time. I had fun. I love traveling for soccer,” Rivera said. “I mean it was open air. For the most part I mean everybody I knew and was hanging out with have all been vaccinated.”

The TSA reports over 2.1 million people were screened by TSA officers on Friday. On Sunday, the TSA reported over 1.6 million people screened.

In response to the surge in Covid-19 cases, BNA says it continues to reinforce its sanitizing protocols and other actions they’ve had going since the start of the pandemic, like free masks for passengers, more hand sanitizer stations, and plastic shields at airline counters.

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