The mandatory quarantine for trans-Pacific travelers to Hawaii who arrive without a negative COVID-19 test will be reduced to 10 days in the near future, state officials said Tuesday.
During an informational briefing by the House of Representatives on the state’s Safe Travels Hawaii program, Adjutant Gen. Kenneth Hara, incident commander for the state’s coronavirus response, confirmed that next week Gov. David Ige will amend the state’s travel requirements to reduce the quarantine from 14 days to 10.
The change, Hara said, is a response to updated guidelines issued last week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those guidelines allow travelers to stop quarantining after seven days if a test taken on or after the fifth day of the quarantine is negative.
State Attorney General Clare Connors said the state will implement the 10-day quarantine after Ige’s next emergency proclamation, which she said likely is to be issued at some point next week, although she did not confirm whether the change would take place immediately after Ige orders it.
While the change would shorten the quarantine for travelers without negative COVID-19 test results available upon arrival, there are no current plans to allow travelers to curtail their quarantine by taking additional tests, Hara said.
In late November, Ige ordered that travelers whose test results were unavailable upon arrival were required to quarantine for two weeks. With an ongoing requirement that travelers’ pre-flight COVID tests be taken no more than 72 hours before arrival, and rising case numbers on the mainland making scheduling tests more difficult, many travelers are not able to receive results in time to avoid quarantine.
However, Hara said, the reason for Ige’s decision in November was to further reduce the possibility of infected individuals spreading the coronavirus among fellow travelers.
“The bottom line is, Safe Travels Hawaii has been a success,” Hara said, adding Hawaii’s COVID response has been the best in the nation.
Lt. Gov. Josh Green said nearly 515,000 people have been screened through the Safe Travels program between its inception on Oct. 15 and Dec. 7, of whom 356,534 were visitors and the remainder residents. Of those screened, 456,741 were exempt from the need to quarantine, the majority of whom tested negative for COVID.
While Green said the state was resigned to a likely surge in COVID cases after beginning the program, such a surge has not happened. The average number of new cases daily statewide has remained nearly static at about 90, while the number of hospitalized COVID patients statewide has decreased by more than half between Oct. 15 and Dec. 7.
Between Oct. 15 and Dec. 7, the test positivity rate on Hawaii Island decreased from 3% to 0.8%.
Despite the program’s ongoing success, Green said there are still ways it could be improved.
“… Although in some ways, one could argue, if it’s not broken, don’t go too far out of one’s way to fix it,” he added.
For example, Green suggested allowing travelers to take pre-flight tests up to 96 hours before arrival, or requiring a secondary antigen post-flight test for all passengers in all four all counties.
While Green’s suggestions will not be a part of Ige’s emergency proclamation next week, Green did add that the state will most likely allow for quarantine exemptions for travelers who have taken the COVID vaccine, which has begun limited distribution in the United Kingdom, although distribution in the U.S. still awaits federal approval.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaitribune-herald.com.