Hawaii opens no-quarantine path
Pre-travel negative test can get visitors in door
HONOLULU — About 8,000 people landed in Hawaii on the first day of a pre-travel testing program that allowed travelers to come to the islands without quarantining for two weeks if they could produce a negative coronavirus test.
Angela Margos was among the first passengers in San Francisco to get on a plane to Hawaii on Thursday morning.
“Vacation, peace of mind,” Margos, a nurse from San Carlos, California, said of why she’s flying to Hawaii. “I need time to relax, unwind.”
The new testing program is an effort to stem the devastating downturn the pandemic has had on Hawaii’s tourism-based economy. Officials had touted the mandatory quarantine rule as an integral part of Hawaii’s early success in keeping the coronavirus at bay.
But gaps in the pre-travel testing program coupled with an increase in COVID-19 cases across the U.S. have raised questions about whether Hawaii is ready to safely welcome back vacationers.
And when local restrictions were eased before summertime holidays, community spread of the disease spiked to alarming levels, forcing a second round of stay-at-home orders for residents and closures for nonessential businesses.
Margos ran into hiccups in getting her test.
She first did it at the hospital where she works, only tofind out it wasn’t an approved site for United Airlines and the state of Hawaii. She then paid $105 for a drive-thru test, but she was later informed there was an error with that test.
Margos ultimately paid $250 for a fast-result test Thursday at the airport in San Francisco, which came back negative.
Opponents of the testing program have said a single test 72 hours before arrival, especially when coupled with the option to fly without a test and still quarantine, is not enough to keep island residents safe.
Kathleen Miyashita and her husband were among those who came to Hawaii Thursday without getting tested. They said they plan to quarantine at their family’s farm on Oahu.
“We chose to do the 14-day quarantine,” Miyashita said. “We have no issues with having food being brought in. It’s like a quarantining haven in terms of having fresh fruits and vegetables at home.”
She said she and her husband were “not at all” concerned about being asymptomatic carriers of the disease.
“We’ve been traveling, and we just take precautions,” she said, adding that they had already done one quarantine in Hawaii about two months ago.
In other developments:
■ Gov. Bill Lee is calling for the temporary suspension of negative consequences for Tennessee schools and teachers related to student tests for the current school year due to adjustments and disruptions to learning caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
■ The Oregon Health Authority reported 418 new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases and six additional deaths. At the current rate of transmission, Oregon Health Authority officials project that new infections will increase “substantial
ly” to 570 new reported cases a day and 40 hospitalizations.
■ New Mexico health officials on Friday confirmed the state set another single-day record with
819 COVID-19 cases, bringing the statewide total to 35,770 since the pandemic began. New rules to limit gatherings to five people or less, reduce hotel capacities and impose a 10 p.m. closing time for bars and some restaurants also took effect Friday after successive days of record-breaking daily infection rates.
■ One of Utah’s largest hospitals had no beds left Friday in its regular intensive-care unit as the governor declared the state’s weekslong spike in coronavirus cases “unsustainable.”
■ North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services unveiled a plan Friday in which it described the residents it will prioritize when a coronavirus vaccine gets approved and becomes available.
■ Wisconsin broke the record for new positive coronavirus cases on Friday for the third time in a week as a surge that began in early September shows no signs of abating. A third lawsuit filed Friday asks the Wisconsin Supreme Court to rule that Gov. Tony Evers overstepped his authority in issuing subsequent public health emergency orders after the first one expired in May.