State widens travel watch
New York quarantine list aimed at curbing influx of coronavirus adds 4 states
Travelers to New York from 22 states are now facing a mandatory 14-day quarantine under an order issued June 24 by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin were added to the quarantine list on Tuesday. The other states flagged by the state Health Department are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. The state of Delaware was removed from the list Tuesday.
The list expanded Tuesday as travelers flying into New York airports from states with high rates of coronavirus infections now face the threat of a summons and $2,000 fine if they decline to fill out forms disclosing their travel plans.
That mandate, announced Monday by Cuomo, came after tens of thousands of airline travelers refused to sign the forms and brushed past airport tables staffed by health
officials tasked with collecting the information.
“You must give officials at the airport your form as to where you came from and where you’re going, before you leave the airport,” Cuomo said. The new edict “will be enforced at every airport in the state of New York.”
The Port Authority is enforcing the new regulation at downstate airports and Cuomo had said that at upstate airports — Macarthur, Westchester, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo and Niagara Falls — enforcement teams stationed at the regional airports would be made up of Health Department peace officers and State Police.
If a flight originating in a state flagged as high risk makes a stop at an airport in a state not on the list, the passengers on that flight will not receive the law enforcement greeting at the gate. That was the case with a flight arriving in Albany late Tuesday afternoon that originated in Florida but was scheduled to make a stop in Baltimore.
The governor’s office said the law enforcement personnel will meet arriving aircraft at the gate and greet disembarking passengers to request proof that they completed the traveler forms. On Tuesday, flights that weren’t originating in one of the quarantine states still weren’t being met by health and law enforcement officials in Albany. The Health Department table was still next to the baggage claim escalators.
The Times Union reported Monday that the TSA would need to waive regulations to allow the state workers, including troopers, to pass airport checkpoints and into so-called “sterile” areas, where police officers and other workers are credentialed to go after receiving special training and separate identification.
Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, whose department has a $2.2 million annual contract with Albany International Airport to oversee security, said he learned about the new regulation as a result of Cuomo’s briefing Monday.
“You need to take a class to be certified to go into sterile areas,” Apple said. “It’s a separate ID; it doesn’t matter who you are. You need that separate ID in order to go back there. That’s through the TSA.”
Doug Myers, a spokesman for Albany International Airport, on Monday said there would be an “approved security protocol in place” that will allow “nonbadged individuals to proceed through the TSA checkpoint.”
A TSA spokeswoman said the state workers, including law enforcement officers, will be allowed to proceed through the security checkpoint but will need to undergo screening similar to passengers and airline employees.
Myers said the state workers will get tables and chairs to greet disembarking passengers at the passenger gates.
State officials do not have the legal authority to obtain flight passenger manifests.
Cuomo said anyone who flouts the new requirement “can then be brought to a hearing and ordered to complete mandatory quarantine,” Cuomo said. “We can’t have a situation where we have people coming from other states bringing the virus again.”
At the Elmira, Ogdensburg and Plattsburgh airports, the enforcement teams will be there only on the days when there flights arriving from impacted states, officials said.
But if a traveler takes a connecting flight to a New York airport through an airport that is not in a state on the quarantine list, it’s unclear how police or health officials would be able to confirm that passenger’s information if they decline to fill out a questionnaire.
The Health Department two weeks ago said government workers had collected more than 6,600 questionnaires from travelers who had landed at New York airports in the first week after Cuomo first imposed a 14day quarantine, which went into effect on June 25.
The two-page forms carry the header “New York State Traveler Health Form” and ask participants to list their personal information, including name, phone numbers, email and residential addresses as well as their ultimate destination. It asks travelers to list states they have visited and the dates, as well as to disclose any information about COVID-19 symptoms. The form ends with a warning above the signature line stating the person submitting the form is providing truthful information “under penalty of law.”
“Upon entering New York, if you are a traveler and do not have a suitable dwelling for your 14day quarantine period, you must find appropriate accommodations at your own cost,” the form states. “If you are a NYS resident returning from travel and do not have appropriate accommodations for quarantine, please call
“
We can’t have a situation where we have people coming from other states bringing the virus again.”
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo
your local health department.”
Many other governors have imposed similar mandatory quarantines for people visiting or returning to their states, but New York’s order imposes hefty civil penalties — that can escalate up to $10,000 — for anyone who violates the requirement. Other states have made the orders “advisory.”
In order for someone to face a penalty in New York, Public Health Law had required that they first be notified by a local health department official that they are subject to quarantine and ordered to isolate themselves or their family. But under the mandate announced by Cuomo, someone can now receive a summons immediately for noncompliance.
There is no timetable for how long New York’s quarantine requirement will remain in effect; Cuomo imposed it at a time when tens of thousands of people are beginning to embark on summer vacations, including to locations that include the Carolinas and Florida, which are among states flagged as high-risk.
States are included in the advisory if 10 per 100,000 residents or 10 percent of the total population tests positive on a seven-day rolling average.
Someone who merely passes through a high-risk state, and
may visit a few rest areas along the way or have a layover at an airport, are not required to selfquarantine upon entering New York.
Southwest, the largest carrier at Albany, said it posted information about the new procedures, along with a link to the Traveler Health Form.
A Southwest spokesman said the airline also sends pre-trip email reminders to passengers four days before their flight and again the day before. Announcements also are made in the gate area of all flights departing to Albany, Buffalo, Islip, Laguardia and Rochester, the destinations Southwest serves in New York state, said Southwest spokesman Brian Parrish in an email to the Times Union.
When Cuomo first announced the new procedure, it was apparently widely ignored, according to one passenger who flew to the West Coast during the Independence Day weekend.
“We flew Southwest, so we transferred planes each way at Chicago MDW,” the traveler told the Times Union in an email. “When we returned to Albany, I think I caught a glimpse of the table containing the forms that incoming travelers were meant to grab & fill out.
“I think, because by the time I realized what was on the table we were past it & on our way to our car in the garage,” the Saratoga County resident wrote. “There were no signs anywhere in the airport alerting travelers to NY State’s quarantine order, and certainly nothing and no person directing travelers to this table.