The US recorded 3 times as many COVID-19 cases on Labor Day this year as it did during the holiday in 2020

• The US recorded three times as many COVID-19 cases on Labor Day as it did on the holiday last year.
• It also recorded nearly twice as many deaths. Millions of people traveled over the weekend.
• The New York Times' tracker indicates about 100,000 people in the US are hospitalized with COVID-19.

The US recorded three times as many coronavirus cases on Labor Day this year as it did on the holiday last year, while known deaths from COVID-19 were up almost twofold, according to The New York Times' COVID-19 tracker.

The country recorded 76,976 new coronavirus cases on Monday, compared with 25,166 on last year's Labor Day, along with 515 deaths, compared with 263 on the holiday last year, per The Times. All the numbers are most likely undercounts, as The Times noted many states did not report COVID-19 statistics on Labor Day.

Hospitalizations year over year were also up 150%. There were 98,632 on Monday, compared with 39,515 on Labor Day last year, the tracker indicates.

The large number of hospitalizations is straining the US health system. On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services reported that 75% of hospital beds were in use, with COVID-19 patients taking up one-third of all intensive-care-unit beds.

Scores of people traveled for the holidays, which could exacerbate the virus' spread. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week warned unvaccinated people against traveling for the holidays; vaccination dramatically reduces a person's risk of catching COVID-19 or being hospitalized with it.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing last week that "with disease transmission right now, we would say that people need to take their own - these risks into their own consideration as they think about traveling."

The Transportation Security Administration reported that 5.2 million travelers passed through its checkpoints from Saturday through Monday.

The US is struggling to contain the Delta virus variant, which has led to a surge in infections and hospitalizations mostly among the unvaccinated.