Since last Thursday, over 31,000 trans-Pacific passengers have landed in Hawaii. That’s significant since that’s the date when Hawaii ended a mandatory 14-day quarantine for passengers who have gotten a negative COVID-19 test.
To be specific, Hawaii’s rules require all arrivals, regardless of age, to provide a negative test result with an FDA approved NAAT (nucleic acid amplification test) performed with a nasal swab from a CLIA certified lab from 72 hours before arrival.
We’ve already spelled out some of the problems people were having complying with the requirements.
It’s not surprising that several passengers who arrived just after the change didn’t fully meet Hawaii’s requirements. While it would have been fully in its right for Hawaii to require these travelers to quarantine, the government issued a temporary waiver through Sunday allowing COVID tests taken at non-trusted sources to be accepted for travelers to avoid quarantine.
There’s no word if this waiver will be extended any longer. The governor has said that he’s working with more businesses on the mainland to expand the trusted partner list for pre-travel tests.
Hawaii also allows travel between Oahu, Maui and Kauai with a negative test from a trusted testing facility. Thankfully, the government has finally provided a list of eight trusted testing facilities for inter-county travel. The Big Island is not participating in the program and still requires all entrants to quarantine for 14 days.
While I know many people are wanting to take a trip to Hawaii after months of quarantine, it may be a good idea to wait until they work all of the kinks out of the testing program.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
Cover Photo by James Wheeler from Pexels
2 comments
Well I have read numerous sources that say children under 5 do NOT need a test to enter Hawaii, so now this article has me even more confused.
From the Hawaii governor website on October 7th: “ Hawaiʻi’s pre-travel testing program requires passengers five and older to take a Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (NAAT) from a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certified laboratory within 72 hours from the final leg of departure and produce a negative result in order to avoid the state’s 14-day mandatory quarantine.”