New York considers visitor quarantine

Cuomo says travelers from virus hot spots could add new cases

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is “seriously considering” a quarantine for out-of-state travelers visiting New York, he said in a series of cable television interviews on Monday.

The governor doubled down on the suggestion he first brought up last week, contemplating an isolation period for visitors coming from states where coronavirus cases are on the rise, including Florida and Texas. Cuomo touted New York’s turnaround from the state with the worst infection rate to one of the best in the country and worried aloud that an influx of travelers from other states could harm New York’s progress.

He said he is in talks with Govs. Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Ned Lamont of Connecticut — where coronavirus cases have also declined in recent weeks — about possibly coordinating regional rules for out-of-state travelers.

“It’s more effective if we act as a regional collaboration, and I’m talking to them about putting in guidelines so we don’t have people coming from these other states,” Cuomo said in a Monday morning interview on MSNBC.

In a CNN interview minutes later, Cuomo clarified that he would not target specific states, but possibly a general group of those areas “with the highest transmission rate.” The governor had previously criticized other states, including Florida and Rhode Island, that sought to quarantine New Yorkers who visited those states when the infection rate in New York was at its highest levels.

In March, Florida began requiring New Yorkers to selfisolate for 14 days after arriving in the Sunshine State. The same month, Rhode Island also issued a 14-day quarantine order for New York travelers, enforced as authorities stopped cars to question drivers with New York license plates and knocked on doors in search of visitors.

The latter order had caused a massive clash with Cuomo’s office, as the governor threatened to sue Rhode Island for singling out New York. It was later walked back.

“What they were talking about back then was Rhode Island targeting just New Yorkers,” Cuomo said on CNN Monday. “They pull you over by your license plate, which I thought was absurd. Florida did put in a quarantine, which I think was more political than anything else, but now we have a very real problem.”

New York’s coronavirus cases have continued to decline, with just 10 deaths on Sunday — the lowest one-day total since March 21, Cuomo’s office said in a Monday release. Less than 1 percent of diagnostic tests returned positive.