Governor David Ige, in a morning online conversation with Ryan Tsuji and Yunji DeNies on the Honolulu Star-Advertiser web site, said he will announce a change in interisland travel regulations this afternoon. He’ll be holding a 2 p.m. press conference.
He said while he plans to eliminate the 14-day interisland travel quarantine, interisland travel will be quite different than what Hawaii residents are familiar with. He said all interisland travelers will be screened for symptoms, have a temperature check, and have to provide information about their plans and their lodging, in order to be able to track people if there are cases of COVID-19 to which they’ve been exposed.
He said reopening interisland travel will let the kama’aina economy reopen, and also test the extent to which new cases of COVID-19 are detected, even though right now, there is very little virus in the state.
He said once it’s clear that the state can successfully manage interisland travel, the state can then reopen travel from out of state. He said he would like to see the first travelers come from states and countries with low COVID-19 counts–Alaska and Utah being two states, and internationally, he believes that Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea would be the likely first countries welcomed back.
He said with California having a skyrocketing rate of new cases, it wouldn’t be safe to encourage travelers from California.
In a later press conference, State House Speaker Scott Saiki and Bank of Hawaii Chairman Peter Ho, who chair the House Select Committee on COVID-19 Economic and Financial Preparedness said they want businesses to be able to reopen but reopening travel requires care to avoid an influx of COVID-19 cases. The airports need to be set up to manage arrivals, and hotels also need to be part of helping prevent community spread.
