Lt. Gov. Inexperienced’s October 1st press convention discussing Hawaii’s new COVID-19 pre-travel testing program

We’ve watched and rewatched Lieutenant Governor Green’s October 1st press conference outlining particulars of Hawaii’s COVID-19 pre-travel testing program. We’ve summarized the press convention beneath. Welcome to bullet level metropolis!

The lieutenant governor described the content material of his press convention as  “…the fundamental, rock-solid data of what it’ll seem like come October 15th.” A few of the data, you in all probability already know, however a few of it’s new data.

Hawaii’s pre-travel take a look at plan, to ensure that guests to be exempt from quarantine, will work as follows:

• Begins Thursday, October 15, 2020
• For inbound passengers from the U.S. Mainland solely at the beginning. Worldwide passengers might be addressed later.
• Exams have to be FDA Approved Nucleic Acid Amplification Check (NAAT) from an authorized CLIA Lab. No antibody or antigen assessments might be accepted right now.
• The take a look at will be taken no sooner than 72 hours earlier than the departure of the final leg of the traveler’s flight itinerary. Hawaii might be accommodating to vacationers with air journey delays which can be out of the traveler’s management.
• Youngsters ages 4 and underneath won’t be required to be examined. Subsequently, kids ages 5 and up have to be examined.
• The take a look at consequence have to be unfavourable to be exempt from the 14-day quarantine. (If the take a look at result’s constructive, the individual mustn’t journey. Inexperienced famous the individual ought to defer their journey, reschedule or get a refund. He additionally famous that that the airways have been beneficiant in theses circumstances when persons are sick.)

Right here’s how journey to Hawaii is designed with the brand new procedures and assuming every little thing works as deliberate:

1. After reserving journey to Hawaii, all individuals ages 18 and up should register their journey plans at https://travel.hawaii.gov. (That is the Protected Travels type.)
2. No sooner than 72 hours earlier than departure time of the ultimate leg, all individuals ages 5 and up should get examined by the accepted technique.
3. Inside 24 hours earlier than journey, vacationers should log into their Protected Travels account and full the Journey Well being Questionnaire. Then a QR code might be offered by the system.
4. Assuming the traveler receives a unfavourable take a look at consequence earlier than arrival, the individual uploads their consequence into their Protected Travels account. Per https://hawaiicovid19.com/travel/ vacationers are requested to keep up proof of their unfavourable take a look at outcomes.
5. In Hawaii, all guests are to put on a masks and socially distance.

After all, there are a number of extra “what if” eventualities via the brand new procedures. The essential ones to spotlight are:

• If a customer doesn’t obtain their take a look at consequence by the point they arrive in Hawaii, they need to quarantine in a lodge or motel till they obtain a unfavourable take a look at consequence. Once they do obtain a unfavourable take a look at consequence, they’re to add it into their Protected Travels account.
• If a traveler receives a constructive take a look at consequence after arrival, they need to quarantine for the total period of their illness.
• If a traveler doesn’t pre-travel take a look at, they need to quarantine for 14 days.

So far as trusted testing companions, the lieutenant governor offered these particulars and insights.

• Walgreens, CVS and Kaiser are all accepted testing companions. The price of the take a look at is the accountability of the traveler. Inexperienced indicated that Kaiser has stated they’ll provide testing for his or her members for free of charge. Test https://hawaiicovid19.com/travel/ for the accepted checklist of testing companions.
• As the beginning of testing won’t be related till October 12th, the testing companions might not have a lot if any data at the moment supplied on their web sites or storefronts till nearer to the time when assessments will be taken.
• For vacationers with kids ages 5 years and up, they might want to verify with testing companions for any age restrictions. It seems that some testing companions might take a look at kids ages seven and older.
• Ultimately, https://hawaiicovid19.com/travel might be uploaded with a matrix of testing companions and age necessities.
• There might be test-at-home companions with mail-in testing, however the strategy of acquiring the take a look at pattern have to be noticed by way of telehealth.
• Some airways have introduced testing choices obtainable from a handful of main U.S. cities. These testing choices are accepted for journey to Hawaii. A few of these choices might embody mail-in testing, drive-through testing, same-day testing. Some testing might happen within the neighborhood of the airport or on the airport. Extra testing choices/areas/airline choices are anticipated sooner or later. Right here’s what’s been introduced to this point:

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Different attention-grabbing data that was shared within the press convention about reopening tourism are:

• At the beginning, at greatest, Hawaii is barely anticipating 5,000 to eight,000 guests arriving per day. Be aware that that is down from 30,000 to 35,000 previous to COVID-19.
• The lieutenant governor estimates that maybe one in a thousand arrivals may very well have COVID-19 that was not discovered within the testing and screening course of.
• A voluntary, second take a look at could also be supplied to guests as soon as they’re in Hawaii. This take a look at might be used to confirm that the techniques are limiting the virus from being introduced in by guests. This thought/plan is underneath improvement.
• The lieutenant governor hinted that a number of the islands might undertake additional necessities. The island/county mayors and the governor are at the moment discussing this situation. (See our rationalization of how the island counties are organized.) That is the present wildcard within the matter.
• Multi-island journey might develop into sophisticated, particularly if the partially re-instated, inter-island quarantine remains to be in place. See this link for inter-island quarantine necessities.

We encourage you to watch and listen to the October 1st press conference for your self. With because of Hawaii Information Now, we’ve embedded the press convention video:

Be aware that every one the knowledge contained on this article is correct on the time of publishing on October 2, 2020. Many features are very a lot topic to vary.

One more, “bigger” press convention is deliberate for Tuesday, October sixth.

For additional rationalization of the above data in addition to different questions, you’ll have, please learn via the numerous questions and solutions at https://hawaiicovid19.com/travel.