By Alfred Acenas
EBC Hawaii Bureau
HONOLULU (Eagle News) – Governor David Ige announced on Monday, June 1, that the state will be lifting the 14-day mandatory self-quarantine requirement for inter-island travelers, effective on Tuesday, June 16.
The Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) will require thermal screening at the airports for everyone traveling inter-island. HDOT will also require travelers to fill out a new form that will also ask for health-related information to assist the state in tracking and responding to new COVID-19 cases.
Travelers may be prohibited from boarding a flight if:
- they have an elevated temperature above 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius);
- they refuse to complete the mandatory form; or
- they are on the 14-day quarantine list prohibiting them from flying.
“I want to ensure the public that the health and safety of our residents are still our primary concerns. We would not have taken this step if key indicators were not achieved,” said Ige. “The number of new COVID-19 cases is very low, among the lowest in the nation. We also have ample healthcare capacity to handle any new outbreak or surge, and our testing and contact tracing capacity continue to increase.”
As of this report, the Aloha State has 652 confirmed cases and 17 deaths, both considered as some of the lowest in the U.S. Also, there were no new cases reported earlier today despite having reported three cases for three consecutive days prior.
The State Government believes that the number of new COVID-19 cases is expected to rise once travel is reopened. However, the Department of Health (DOH) has begun the process of training 500 new contact tracers, exceeding the recommended standards set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and is exploring other screening and testing procedures.
The Democratic governor stressed, “This is an important step for everyone living in Hawaii. It will help reunite families and friends who have been separated due to COVID-19. And it’s an important step for the reopening of our kamaʻaina economy.”
Ige further noted that the next step in re-opening air travel will be restoring out-of-state travel to the islands in a safe manner. He has been working on plans to do this and said he would announce them soon.
“We must ensure that we do not experience a surge in cases that overwhelms our healthcare capacity. While we are working quickly to re-open travel, this must be a careful and thoughtful process’,” the governor stated. “We have seen the new outbreaks in other communities have re-opened too quickly. And many of our largest visitor markets, such as California, still have large numbers of cases that are a cause for concern.”
(Eagle News Service)