A Black Friday With Masked Shoppers And Booming Online Sales

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Black Friday shoppers wearing face masks wait in line to enter a store at the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, Calif., on Friday.

Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP

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A Best Buy employee delivers a curbside pickup order to a customer’s vehicle on Friday in Hawthorne, Calif.

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Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

A Best Buy employee delivers a curbside pickup order to a customer’s vehicle on Friday in Hawthorne, Calif.

Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

The backdrop for the customary kick-off of holiday shopping was sobering: As of Friday, about 90,000 people were in U.S. hospitals with COVID-19, which is more than twice as many as just one month ago, according to The COVID Tracking Project.

Despite the dire case numbers, shopping patterns do not reflect a gloomy scenario for sales. The pandemic has vastly accelerated the pace of online shopping. This year, Adobe Analytics, which tracks online shopping, predicts that Black Friday and Cyber Monday will become the two largest online sales days in U.S. history, with Thanksgiving sales up 21.5% from 2019.

By staying away from large indoor spaces with masses of people, online shoppers could also be helping to flatten the curve. But despite the pandemic, many Americans were on the move this Thanksgiving. The Transportation Security Administration reported screening more than 1 million travelers in airports on Wednesday, and AAA estimated 48 million more were travelling by car. All that travel could produce a flare in cases, but health experts say the spread won’t be detectable for several weeks.