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A plane flies to Lihue Airport on Kauai.
Matthew Micah Wright / Getty ImagesPlanning to fly to Hawaii for vacation? Better to make sure your negative COVID-19 results are on hand, and not just pending, before boarding your plane under a change to the state’s Safe Travels program announced Thursday, November 19.
Another big change: bring some extra masks too. A new statewide warrant issued on Monday, November 16, requires people aged 5 and over to wear masks in all indoor public places, in private vehicles when members of other households are present and outdoors when the distance of 6 feet from non-household members cannot be maintained.
There are some exceptions, such as for eating and drinking, or for people with health problems. The violation is a misdemeanor with penalties of up to one year in prison and a fine of $ 5,000.
The measures come as Hawaii aims to tighten restrictions on coronaviruses ahead of the holiday season. Under the amended Safe Travels program, which begins Tuesday, November 24, arriving passengers must have already received their negative results prior to landing, or they will need to be quarantined for 14 days or the length of their stay. , whichever is shorter.
Hawaii Governor David Ige announced the change at a press conference in Honolulu on Thursday, expressing concern over “the dramatic increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the continental United States and around the world ”as Hawaii currently has one of the nation’s lowest case rates.
There have been at least 44 cases of travelers to Hawaii who had participated in the pre-test program, but only learned their results were positive “upon arrival or a day or two later,” Ige said. “It’s not a large number, but it’s enough to change the policy. We need to close the gap to keep everyone safe… especially as more and more people come to Hawaii to celebrate the holidays. As late as Thursday, a visitor received confirmation of a positive COVID test after landing in Hawaii.
The test program helped reopen Hawaii to tourism when it debuted on October 15. It allows travelers to bypass an otherwise mandatory two-week quarantine by passing a specific COVID-19 test from an approved partner no more than 72 hours before their intended landing. They must also upload the results to the Safe Travels website, which produces a QR code that passengers must show security guards after they land.
Until November 23, they are still allowed to board the plane if their results are pending, a loophole that may force visitors who later test positive to self-quarantine at a designated hotel of their own. fresh.
United Airlines passengers pass through the boarding gate to board a flight to Hawaii on October 15, 2020 at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco.
Jeff Chiu / Associated Press“We expected a few cases of COVID to be introduced due to travel,” Governor Ige admitted on Tuesday, adding that the pre-travel testing program was just a “layer” in a “layered approach” To protect residents. and visitors. “We are the only state to perform thermal screening at the arrivals airport and we are working with the visitor industry, hotels and visitor destinations to implement a COVID mitigation strategy.”
The Safe Travels program screened a total of 273,020 passengers in its first 35 days, according to Lt. Gov. Josh Green, who noted that the state’s program also includes “surveillance tests,” a second test. for arriving passengers expected to be taken over several days. after landing.
Of 17,250 surveillance tests statewide, only 27 produced positive results, Green said at yesterday’s press conference. Follow-up tests of 616 arrivals in Oahu, for example, found three cases of COVID infection, none of the 311 tested in Kauai and only one of the 392 tested in Maui. Of the 15,931 tests performed on the island of Hawaii, also known as the Big Island, 23 returned with positive results.
“By doing this work, we were able to keep COVID rates at the lowest in the country,” Green said, citing an average of 88 new cases daily over seven days and a 2% positivity rate. “Right now, most of our spread is not from travelers, it’s mostly up to us, but that’s normal because we’re together, at work, playing, etc.
However, at a press conference earlier Thursday, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell criticized statistics from Oahu’s surveillance test program for being closer to 1% than the 10% of travelers promised by the state. He also noted that the vast majority of surveillance tests came from the island of Hawaii, so most were administered immediately on arrival as part of that county’s mandatory secondary tests for Safe Travels participants.
“It takes four to seven days to start spreading (the virus),” Caldwell said. “It’s not surveillance, and it’s misleading.”
Honolulu’s mayor urged the state to consider instituting broader follow-up testing within an appropriate time frame, especially given the surprising rise in infections in most of the rest of the United States. “We relied on the promises made and took risks, and that risk is now greater due to the number of cases on the continent and the raging forest fire of COVID-19, and the positivity rate of over 10% (there) compared to ours below 3%, ”Caldwell said.
In the meantime, the island of Hawaii has actually reduced its requirement for a second rapid-result test of all Safe Travels participants to just 25% randomized of program visitors. Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim said in a Nov. 6 press release that the cost of testing and lack of sufficient space made testing for all participants “unsustainable,” although “the importance of these tests remains unchanged ”.
Those who choose to quarantine instead of taking a COVID-19 test in advance are not subject to the county secondary test, but like similar untested arrivals statewide, they are not allowed to stay in short-term vacation rentals, booking rental cars, shopping, dining out, or being in public places. Quarantine violators also face a fine of $ 5,000 and up to one year in prison.
Earlier this week, a woman from San Francisco in Maui was arrested for apparently breaking quarantine. She has been charged with violating emergency public health orders and unsworn forgery to authorities after her social media posts featured her trips to Maui.
Kauai and Maui counties offer voluntary follow-up testing programs, which have also detected a handful of COVID-19 infections among residents and returning visitors who tested negative before their flight. The Kauai Department of Health reported the most recent case on Wednesday, which involved a returning resident. The Kauai program is free for residents and $ 150 for visitors, who receive an equivalent voucher from a local restaurant, retailer or activity provider.
About 6,000 to 8,000 domestic passengers have arrived in Hawaii daily since Oct. 15, according to figures from the Hawaii Tourism Authority. This compares to some 30,000 a day before the pandemic caused tourism to stop in March. The state reopened to visitors from Japan on November 6 and plans to allow visitors from Canada by mid-December.
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