Kauai Will Require Additional Testing as Hawaii Quarantine-Free Reopening Starts
UPDATE 10/6/20 – The Governor refused the mayors proposal and said that Kauai will follow the same procedures as everyone else.
Hawaii is finally set to lift its mandatory quarantine rules for visitors who can prove they do not have the coronavirus with a recent negative test results. Hawaii Gov. David Ige has announced that starting October 15, travelers arriving from out of state don’t have to quarantine if they have proof of a negative test within 72 hours of arrival.
Several airlines are expected to offer testing for passengers once the new rules go into effect. American, United, Hawaiian and Southwest have all said they will have tests ready for the reopening.
But one of the islands has already stated that it will impose additional requirements on visitors. Kauai’s Mayor Derek Kawakami wants arriving travelers to receive a second test, after they’ve remained restricted to their designated resort bubble for the first three days. If the second test comes back negative, visitors will no longer need to wear electronic monitoring devices and will be permitted to move about the island freely.
Kauai’s Mayor Derek Kawakami said he has petitioned the governor for permission to implement his plan. The county has had only 59 cases since the start of the pandemic. Kawakami said that his county is ready to implement the program on October 15, and is just waiting for the governor to sign off, Hawaii News Now reports.
Hawaii’s Lieutenant Governor Josh Green has estimated that only one in 1,000 arrivals might still bring the virus onto the islands, if they they test negative within 72 hours of arrival. Kauai’s mayor thinks that’s not good enough and that the island needs a second layer of protection. A passenger who is COVID-free three days prior to travel could still have contracted the virus before landing in Hawaii.
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Governor Ige has denied Kauai’s proposal for a second test. Lt. Gov. Josh Green called it unecessary, an impediment to our economic recovery, and infeasible due to supply constraints. That’s even though Kauai was able to obtain tests on its own and mounting evidence from places that have tried a similar programs, such as Alaska and Tahiti, that a single test plan doesn’t work.
The second test and three day quarantine on Kauai is NOT going to happen. The mayor’s request was denied by the Gov.
If it’s really so dangerous wouldn’t 1 in a 1,000 visitors with COVID be too much? I mean this seriously. I’m sure there will less visitors for some time to come but there are usually about 10 million visitors to Hawaii per normal year.
Nope. The Governor did not grant mayor Kawakami’s request. Tahiti tried the second test and it failed to stop the Covid. I live on Kauai. No Covid. It’s coming.
I think the mayor of Kauai wants to do the right thing, because you can get COVID immediately after testing negative. So, a 3 day period offers a lot of opportunities to still get COVID prior to arriving in Kauai.
I think that a rapid test upon arrival would be better than being quarantined for 3 days and then getting tested. Depending on the provider, test results could take days to come back, essentially quarantining a person for a week.