The State Department says it is starting to ramp up passport operations and is working on a backlog of about 1.7 million applications that have been delayed by the coronavirus outbreak.
U.S. passport operations were scaled back in March because of COVID-19. The State Department has been processing applications for health care workers, military personnel and people who needed to travel because of a life-or-death emergency.
Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Carl Risch told reporters Friday that more passport agency staff have begun returning to work and additional personnel will also be brought in to help process applications, some of which have been pending since February.
Risch said they hope to complete about 200,000 per week and eliminate the backlog, provided the virus does not surge again and the State Department is not required again to scale back operations. Passport agency employees can’t work from home for security reasons.
The U.S. typically processes about 18 million passports per year. (AP)
