A lot of people on the U.S. mainland have been watching Hawaii’s struggle with the decision to reopen to help its economy versus staying closed and protecting its people from the 2019 Novel Coronavirus. Unfortunately, the virus appears to be winning right now, and it makes me wonder if our 50th state will reopen on September 1st, as Governor David Ige has most recently said.
Hawaii is, of course, composed of a handful of islands. When Hawaii initially went into lockdown mode, it included shutting down inter-island travel. That quarantine was lifted on June 16th. Since then, their numbers have slowly (and then not so slowly) gone higher and higher. From Google:
Honolulu County, on O’ahu, has had, by far, the most amount of total confirmed cases (just shy 3,000 as of this writing), as well as the most cases in the past 28 days.
In response, Gov. Ige is reinstating some (well, most) inter-island traveler quarantine:
- Travel from O’ahu to any other Hawaiian island, as well as travel between any other 2 islands, will require a 14 day quarantine upon arrival
- Travel to O’ahu from any other Hawaiian island will not require a quarantine
This will go into effect on Tuesday, August 11th and remain in place through August 31st.
“I have been working closely with all of our county mayors and we agree that reinstating the inter-island travel quarantine is necessary and the right thing to do at this time. We must protect our neighbor island residents in light of the alarming increase in COVID-19 cases on O‘ahu,” said Gov. Ige.
O’ahu is also experiencing a closure of city and state parks and beaches, as well as botanical gardens, city and private swimming pools, bowling alleys, tennis courts and hiking trails from August 7th through Sept. 5th, to better enforce social distancing.
I know that those in the Hawaiian government are looking at all sorts of ways to keep their people safe. Their latest idea for visitor quarantine for when they reopen the islands has more questions than answers and that’s on top of what a lot of Hawaiian think about reopening anyway.
Gov. Ige has already said, “…if there are too many cases here and we haven’t stopped the increase, then we would be looking at delaying the Sept. 1 date.”
With their continually being so careful and the issues coming out of O’ahu, I’ll be very surprised if they reopen on September 1st.
Feature Image: Needpix.com
#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands #wearamask
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and get emailed notifications of when we post. Or maybe you’d like to join our Facebook group – we have 14,000+ members and we talk and ask questions about travel (including Disney parks), creative ways to earn frequent flyer miles and hotel points, how to save money on or for your trips, get access to travel articles you may not see otherwise, etc. Whether you’ve read our posts before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
1 comment
Just goes to show you that you can NOT stop this. It’s crazy to shut down for long periods of time and expect to contain this. You just have to build up a herd immunity. I have relatives in Argentina and Colombia and other places that have been locked down for months. Destroying their economy and it’s still spreading now. Look at New Zealand and other places that had it under control but it will spread eventually.
Hawaii is futile in trying to stay closed forever. The state is broke.