Lamont toughens travel advisory
Gov. Ned Lamont is stepping up enforcement, including potential fines, of a travel advisory that has required some travelers to Connecticut to voluntarily quarantine for two weeks upon arrival.
Lamont, during his daily briefing Monday, said travelers will be asked to fill out a self-certification form when they land at Connecticut airports that will include questions about where they are coming from and what their plans are for quarantining, as well as a request for contact information. It’s possible, he said, that a state police officer will be on site to remind people how important adherence to the quarantine is for Connecticut.
Lamont said there have been several anecdotal reports of visitors not adhering to the quarantine requirement, which until now has been mandatory but unenforced.
“We haven’t had to do that to date, when it came to masks, when it came to safe store rules, when it came to preliminary quarantining, but we did want to send a strong message that we are
taking this seriously, and you should take it seriously, so before you get on that plane in Miami Beach and come up to Bradley Airport know that we will be asking you where you plan to self quarantine, and make sure that you are taking this seriously,” Lamont said. “Let’s see how that goes for a couple of weeks. If we find we still have a lot of leaks in the bucket, we can think about other disincentives to make sure people take it even more seriously.”
The details of the enhanced enforcement should be completed by the end of the week and go into effect beginning this weekend, Lamont said. He said the enhanced enforcement would not affect drivers entering the state.
The enhanced enforcement comes as states across the country continue to see rising COVID infection rates. California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday a sweeping rollback of the state’s reopening plan, as school districts in Los Angeles and San Diego announced they will be online-only in the fall.
Connecticut’s infection rates have remained low — there were just 223 new positive tests out of 31,000 tests performed over the weekend, and the number of patients hospitalized with COVID declined by 3. There were 23 news deaths reported, but Lamont said 17 of those were backlogged and did not occur over the weekend.
As for whether Connecticut could roll back it’s own reopening, Lamont said he’s carefully tracking the data and any fast spike could set off a discussion. Lamont has already pushed back phase three of the state’s reopening, originally slate for July 20, and said he will revisit the issue in August.
Lamont invited the state’s chief epidemiologist, Dr. Matthew Cartter, to participate in Monday’s news briefing, introducing him with a jab at the Trump administration’s attempt to distance itself from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, over the weekend.
“Science sometimes gets the back of the hand in Washington, D.C., but not in Hartford,” Lamont said. “We’re trying to lead with our scientists.”
Cartter said he estimates that for every positive case of COVID-19 in Connecticut, there are another 10 infected, an estimate also currently used by the federal government.
“Epidemiologists never use the word safe, ever,” Cartter said, addressing a question about whether it will be safe for college sports to resume in the fall. “We can say that something is safer, and that’s our goal, to try to make something, for example schools, as safe as possible. For most people safe means zero risk, but we’re in the middle of a pandemic so there is no way we can make the risk zero.”
Members of the administration have been discussing greater enforcement measures with regional partners in New York and New Jersey since the advisory was put into effect in June. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Lamont has successfully relied on Connecticut residents to voluntarily comply with most executive orders, and has not instituted enforcement measures such as financial penalties for non-compliance.
Those enforcement discussions have ramped up following an announcement by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo that travelers flying into any airport in the state of New York will now be required to fill out forms about their travel plans, and refusal to do so will incur a $2,000 fine.
Lamont has been forced to reconsider his reliance on the effectiveness of public shame as the list of states covered by the advisory has grown from a handful to nearly half of the continental U.S.
The travel advisory currently covers 19 states with rising COVID infection rates, including: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. The list is revised weekly based on 7-day rolling average testing data.