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Millions of Americans, tired of being pinned down by the pandemic, are expected to hit the road this Labor Day weekend despite a coronavirus crisis that continues to generate more than 30,000 new cases per day and shows little sign of slowing down. And the destination of choice, according to the travel site TripIt, is a state where the coronavirus crisis continues unabated — Florida. (Siemaszko, 9/3)

When New York announced last month that Washington state residents could visit without quarantining for two weeks, Seattle-based labor lawyer Michael Subit sprang into action. He started planning a six-day cross-country driving trip with his wife and Bernese Mountain dog to visit his elderly parents. His 91-year-old father was just discharged after four months without visitors at a Veterans Administration hospital, where he was treated for a bone infection. His mother, 83, has diabetes, survived several strokes and heart attacks and is at high risk of COVID-19. (O'Donnell and Rodriguez, 9/4)

Dr. Anthony Fauci has warned that coronavirus cases remain “unacceptably high” as the nation heads into the Labor Day weekend. During an interview this week, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House's Coronavirus Task Force, urged Americans to follow health and safety measures to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, as this weekend will affect how the virus spreads in the upcoming fall and winter seasons. (McGorry, 9/3)

Kaiser Health News and Nashville Public Radio: Will Labor Day Weekend Bring Another Holiday COVID Surge? Jury’s Out.

Hopefully, summer won’t end the way it began. Memorial Day celebrations helped set off a wave of coronavirus infections across much of the South and West. Gatherings around the Fourth of July seemed to keep those hot spots aflame. And now Labor Day arrives as those regions are cooling off from COVID-19. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned Wednesday that Americans should be cautious to avoid another surge in infection rates. But travelers are also weary of staying home — and tourist destinations are starved for cash. (Farmer, 9/4)

Red states in the U.S. are officially at the forefront of COVID-19 outbreaks, with 70 percent of new cases stemming from the nation's Republican-led areas. Still, many new COVID-19 cases are emerging in blue counties, while the majority of cases are concentrated in states that voted for President Trump in the 2016 election, The Washington Post reported. (Deese, 9/3)

States led by Republican governors have been slower than those led by Democrats to require residents to wear masks to protect against the novel coronavirus — if they have adopted such rules at all. New research finds that the governor’s political party was the biggest determinant of whether a state imposed a mask mandate between early April and mid-August, a factor outweighing others including a state’s number of coronavirus infections or deaths linked to the disease caused by the virus. (Goldstein, 9/3)