Kauai wants out of eased travel
Bid to force quarantine denied as state sticks with exemption
HONOLULU — On Hawaii’s rural island of Kauai, where sprawling white sand beaches and dramatic seaside mountains attract visitors from around the world, local residents spent the first seven months of the pandemic sheltered from the viral storm.
Early and aggressive local measures coupled with a strictly enforced statewide travel quarantine kept Kauai’s 72,000 residents mostly healthy. The island had only 61 known coronavirus cases from March through September.
But on Oct. 15, the state launched a pre-travel testing program to reignite Hawaii’s decimated tourism economy. Kauai then went from having no active infections at all in the first part of October to at least 84 new cases in the ensuing seven weeks.
The surge seeded community transmission and led to the island’s first — and so far only — COVID-19 death: Ron Clark, who worked for decades as a tour driver.
Despite Hawaii’s cautious effort at reopening that allowed travelers who tested negative for COVID-19 before they flew to the state to sidestep quarantine rules, the Kauai spike illustrates the difficulty of preserving public health, even on an isolated island, when economic recovery relies on travel. Kauai officials have decided that the cost of vacationing in paradise, for now, is too high.
The day after Clark’s death, Kauai officials said they will opt out of the state’s testing program and require visitors to again quarantine for two weeks whether or not they test negative for COVID-19 before arriving.
Kauai officials say the single-test scheme did not do enough to protect the people who live there. With only nine ICU beds and 14 ventilators, the island’s health care system could quickly become overwhelmed by a large outbreak, said Kauai Mayor Derek Kawakami.
Seeking to prevent such a scenario, Kawakami proposed a mandatory second test for all passengers after arrival. His plan would have included a short quarantine while people awaited their second result.
“We think having a negative test is a good prerequisite to getting on a plane,” Kawakami said. But “once you land on Kauai … (travelers) should be able to sit and cool off for three days.”
But the proposal was turned down by state officials, with Democratic Gov. David Ige saying the plan would have to be locally funded and administered.
After the Kauai surge, the state Department of Health traced most of the island’s October and November cases to returning residents and tourists who brought the virus in despite the pre-flight testing program.
Joann Yukimura, a former Kauai mayor and friend of Ron Clark’s for more than three decades, said that his death shook the community and that she constantly thinks “of him being alone at the hospital … how lonely it must have been to die.”
“Ron’s death might seem to outsiders like such a small matter,” Yukimura said. But it “hit us hard because we on Kauai haven’t become inured to death and sickness, and we don’t ever want to get that way.”
Despite the new infection surge and record number of deaths on the U.S. mainland, top Hawaii officials insist that the pre-travel testing program works.
“The proof is in the pudding,” Hawaii Lt. Gov. Josh Green said. “Hawaii has the lowest rate of COVID in the country because of this program right now.”
Hawaii enjoys relatively low hospitalization and death rates, but health experts said that because of the way COVID-19 accumulates in the body over time, second tests for travelers would weed out more infection.
Dr. Kapono Chong-hanssen, a Native Hawaiian physician who runs a Kauai community health center, said the single test requirement “goes against the medical evidence.”
“We’re starting to see these big holes in the plan, and I think it’s a matter of time before we pay the price,” he said.