Raimondo says follow the rules, or she’ll shut down business

PROVIDENCE – In a new edict designed to clamp down on out-of-state visitors, Gov. Gina M. Raimondo Wednesday said anyone coming to Rhode Island from any of the 33 states around the country that now have a COVID-19 percent positive rate of greater than 5 percent – including Florida, California, Alabama and Arizona – must sign a certificate of compliance verifying that they have had a negative coronavirus test result or that they intend to quarantine for 14 days before they can check into a Rhode Island hotel, bed and breakfast or rental property.

“If they do not do that they will not be able to stay in Rhode Island,” Raimondo said at her weekly press briefing yesterday at Veterans Memorial auditorium. “If you try to check into a hotel or a beach rental property and you’re from one of these 33 states and don’t have proof of a negative test within 72 hours, these hotels will turn you away.”

The new travel restriction, which goes into effect Sunday, is one of two new actions the governor is taking to head off any more spikes of the virus. On July 27, Rhode Island saw 139 new cases, its largest single-day total since the end of May.

Because of the recent spikes here, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey have all added Rhode Island to their quarantine travel advisory lists.

The state’s COVID-19 data for Tuesday was better, however, showing only 84 new cases for a total of 19,481 cases since the pandemic started. There was also one new coronavirus-related death. The state’s virus-related death toll now stands at 1,012.

Raimondo said even though the state’s percent positive rate is still below 3 percent, Rhode Island is at a turning point.

“We want to get children back to school and we want to

get people back to work, but we’re teetering right now and we’re at a very fragile place,” she said. “We have a choice right now because we’re at a turning point. We need to clamp down and get more serious.”

Beginning Sunday, Raimondo said hotels and rental companies will be required to explain the new requirement that requires renters to sign a certificate of compliance before they show up or when they call to make a reservation. She said hotels and rental companies will be required to enforce the new measure or face penalties.

“This approach is very similar to what they’re doing in Maine. It’s working very well there,” she said. “They’re strict about it and it’s showing in their results.”

Raimondo also announced yesterday that beginning Friday, bars in Rhode Island will not be allowed to operate after 11 p.m. Restaurants that have a bar can stay open, but the bar area must be closed, she said.

“As we continue to go through the data we continue to see that bars are a problem,” Raimondo said. “Many of our test positives are related

to someone coming from another state and the same is true for bars. People are congregating at bars and you can see it daily in the data.”

She said inspectors this past weekend found that 20 percent of bars were still not separating the bartender from the customer.

“That’s totally unacceptable. We have a problem and we need to get it under control,” Raimondo said. “We are going to be out in force to enforce this. We are going to ramp up our inspections this weekend and next week.”

She said she won’t hesitate to close bars completely if no improvement in compliance is seen by next week. “I have been trying week after week to avoid this and strike a balance so folks can stay in business, but there’s just too great of a percent of restaurants and bars that are trying to skirt around the limits,” she said.

Raimondo also announced

that the state has contracted with two new labs – Accu Reference and Dominion Diagnostics – which will expand testing capacity and guarantee everyone in Rhode Island who is tested will get results within 48 hours.

“Starting next week these two labs will each run 1,000 Rhode Island tests per day with a guaranteed turnaround time of 48 hours,” she said. “By next month Dominion will increase their capacity to 7,000 tests a day. This is a big win. Testing within 48 hours is a key piece of the puzzle if we’re going to get kids back to school safely.”

Raimondo began her briefing yesterday by addressing Tuesday’s powerful tropical storm Isaias, which left more than 150,000 Rhode Islanders without power.

“I was a serious storm. It came and went quickly, but

knocked out power to over 150,000 Rhode Islanders,” she said. “To put that into perspective that’s more than Super Storm Sandy some years back.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, 70,000 Rhode Islanders were still without power, she said.

“I want you to know we are pushing National Grid as hard as possible to get everybody back up as quickly as possible,” said Raimondo, adding she expect two-thirds of Rhode Islanders will be back online by this afternoon if not before.