Governor David Ige on Tuesday said he expects to allow interisland travel to reopen soon.
He gave no dates, nor did he reveal the conditions that might be in place once interisland travel opens.
At an earlier online meeting Tuesday of the House Select Committee on COVID-19 Economic and Financial Preparedness, State House Speaker Scott Saiki said there are many discussions going on relative to how to handle both interisland travel and travelers coming in from out of state. Alan Oshima, named by Gov. Ige as the Hawaii Economic and Community Recovery and Resiliency, said he met with Gov. Ige on the topic of reopening travel this morning, and the Governor realizes how important it is to make a decision to get travel going.
Carl Bonham, Director of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, said unemployment is continuing to grow and that reopening travel and reopening the economy is critical, and if not done soon, can result in permanent job loss.
At that same meeting, Rep. Bob McDermott presented a plan to safely reopen tourism in Hawaiʻi by having people tested for the coronavirus before they board aircraft coming to the state. McDermott said with the small numbers we have coming here now, testing is not as critical as it will be when we are back to hundreds and thousands of people arriving every day. We need to prepare for that eventuality now, he said.
