Case rates have slowly begun to decline since, but experts say it’s unclear if that will hold. In the first week of September, that number was up to nearly 900. A month later, the state was in the throes of a record surge of delta variant cases that were filling hospitals and leaving more people dead than at any other time in the pandemic.īefore July, Hawaii reported a seven-day average of 46 daily cases. In July, Hawaii lifted its quarantine and testing requirements for vaccinated travelers. And some believe visitors do not see the incentive to test after arrival when facing quarantine away from home.īut when travel numbers increased this summer, so did infection rates. Some of that has been attributed to a severely crippled tourism industry and a lack of participation in leisure travel. Infection rates increased, but they remained low compared with other states. Then, in October 2020, the state allowed travelers to skip quarantine with a single pre-flight test. “No matter what we said and how conclusive the science looked.”Īfter months of mandatory quarantines, business closures and virtually no tourists, Hawaii had among the lowest infection rates in the nation. “Nobody really seemed to listen,” he said. O’Carroll and a number of his colleagues have been pushing state leaders to do the same, he said. Unvaccinated American citizens will need to be tested within a day before returning to the U.S., as well as after they arrive home. to demonstrate proof of vaccination before boarding, as well as proof of a negative COVID-19 test.
New federal rules announced Monday require all foreign travelers flying to the U.S. “The science has been fairly conclusive since probably June of 2020 that a single-test system was no more effective than 30 to 40% in catching a population of infected people.” “There are a lot of holes,” O’Carroll said. Darragh O’Carroll, an emergency and disaster physician in Honolulu. Because of the incubation and latency periods of COVID-19, using just one test to prevent spread among tens of thousands of daily visitors is akin to using a chain link fence to keep out mosquitos, said Dr.
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