Hawaii has announced that starting August 1st, 2020 visitors will be able to avoid the mandatory 14 day quarantine if they can provide a negative COVID-19 test that has been taken within the last 72 hours. Alaska has a similar model in place currently, the key difference is that Alaska will test those on arrival without a test within 72 hours whereas Hawaii is saying that testing on arrival will not be provided as it’s not ‘practical for the islands’. Yesterday NY, NJ and CT announced that mandatory 14 day quarantine would be required for high risk states.
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How easy is it to get a test when you don’t have any COVID-19 symptoms? Can you get a test if you say that you need the test to travel or do you have to say that you had some of the symptoms in the past few days? Also, if the tests are limited, I wouldn’t want to take a testing opportunity away from a person that actually needs it.
Depends where you are I think, should be able to get a test by donating blood though.
I believe when you donate blood they are just checking for antibodies to see if you were exposed some time in the past. It doesn’t show if you have an active infection, which is an antigen test. (It takes two or three weeks after an infection for the antibodies to register on the blood test.) I suspect Hawaii is wanting to ensure that you do not have an active infection, so the blood donation test would not be sufficient.
Looks like you’re right, my apologies. I’d seen some article headlines but never actually read the stories. Thanks for educating and correcting me 🙂
You have to check with the health dept in your state. Here in NY, you can go to an Urgent Car facility and just ask for it. That’s what I did before going to visit my mom (high risk). I didn’t have any symptoms, they asked me if I had been exposed to it, I was not. Also, family without symptoms have gotten both tests from their PCP part of their routine visit.
the “within 72 hours” is nonsense. it takes 3-5 days just to get your result back. Like… what?
There are 3 hour test.
Where? from your private 24/7 on-call physician or something? What testing center dedicates 3 hours for public show-ups?
If I planned to travel to Hawaii, I’d be at the testing center at exactly the 72 hour mark before travel. Also, you need written proof of the test result. In my area, they mostly do phone calls to share the test result. I’m not sure what extra hoops you need to jump through to get the result in writing.
Many places in my state are starting to do rapid antigen tests, which take about 20 minutes to get the results.
Conveniently opening back up the day after federal unemployment ends.
Hmm, good news, I guess. Are the beaches/parks open ? Anybody knows the best place to get tested ? I like Hawaii, and I have points and time to burn.
My city has a list of testing locations. Some drugs stores and one college. You could get tested because you want to.
It’s pretty strange that no state has allowances for people that previously had COVID-19 and fully recovered to avoid being quarantined. Why test people that have already recovered? I’d feel comfortable not quarantining people that tested positive for COVID-19 a month ago without giving them a new test.
Barry, you are assuming you cant catch it again. And we dont know that yet.
Yes, I’m assuming that we can’t catch it again. If we can catch it again, there probably isn’t any point of developing a vaccine. Except for the flu vaccine, most of the vaccines we take are for diseases that a person would only get once.
Perhaps the prospective covid vaccine will be tweaked every year to allow for mutations, much like the annual flu vaccine.
I think part of the reason why is that we don’t fully understand how long you are immune for and you also don’t want to encourage people to get infected just so they can travel again.
Define “recovered.” There are people who no longer are showing physical symptoms, but test positive for the virus. If they still have virus with a nasal swab, they definitely can still spread the virus. At the hospital I work at, a patient who is no longer symptomatic has to have 2 negative tests several days apart before they are considered recovered, and can be taken off of active Covid protocols.
I would argue it is much more important to test the person who tested positive a month ago.
Finally. A way to burn airline/hotel points before bankruptcies!
This is good news. Very reasonable and backed by science. If you test negative, you should be able to travel, especially domestically which is protected by the U.S. constitution. This is a fair balance of personal responsibility and freedom. Hope this is implemented.
The big worry of course is that if there is an infected person on the plane, that person could infect a whole bunch of people who had recent negative tests and they’ll all be allowed to roam free immediately. It would make more sense to test people on arrival.
Not really. If an infected person infects others on the airplane, the newly infected people will not be shedding virus when they land so any test on arrival for the new infection would be negative. In other words, it takes time (several days after being infected) for the antigen test to register as positive.
This is where it gets murky with so many states, businesses, people, etc.. doing so many different things..
So now I take a test for covid today that comes up negative and in two days I fly to Hawaii but catch covid in the airport (what we all assume to be pretty much a hotbed which is why TSA caught it so seriously)..
Now I have no quarantine so I am walking around infecting people as the virus incubates inside of me.
I don’t like it personally, but what can ya do..
Agreed… doing something half way is almost worse than not doing it at all.
It’s a reasonable compromise to make in terms of the threat level of covid versus the importance of tourism to these economies.
Definitely agree. The lieutenant governor, Josh Green, is a physician, and has been working on some of these issues. Though not finalized, they have also reportedly been working with CVS to give potential tourists a pathway to get tested, so that the results are reported back to Hawaii.
The actions of the Hawaiian government so far have kept them at #48 in terms of Covid cases and #49 in Covid related deaths.
Dont like it?…stay home.
I’d much rather be on a plane with people who tested negative 2 days ago than a bunch who haven’t bothered at all.
@anon Your under the assumption that everyone in the airport / airplane has taken the test. There will still be an abundance of people who did not get tested or who ARE sick that will just accept the quarantine on arrival..
it’ll burst out of your chest and spatter blood everywhere. Very messy!
the quarantine needs to be mandatory, and they say 21 days would be better than 14 days.
America is a laughingstock of the world now lol
Sewt churself, bruhther