Hawaii became the first state to require travelers to quarantine, and others have followed, though enforcement has been spotty. Once there, it’s hard to contain, especially if visitors keep arriving. state and territory, including the islands of Guam and Puerto Rico, have the virus. Officials asked Hawaiian Airlines to halt daily flights from Honolulu to try to stay virus-free, and travelers must quarantine for two weeks.Įvery other U.S. territory west of Hawaii, is the nation’s only jurisdiction with no cases. Of the few places in the world with no confirmed COVID-19 infections, nearly all are islands in the Pacific.Īmerican Samoa, a U.S. “The sacrifice of keeping our community safe and healthy,” Ige said, “has come at the expense of more than 225,000 residents who are now unemployed” – about a third of Hawaii’s workforce. Hawaii has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates. The travel restrictions have walloped an economy dependent on tourism, and they will be among the last to end. Unlike Alaska, Montana and Wyoming, there’s no driving or taking a train to the islands, so fewer people will arrive and potentially spread the disease as businesses reopen. Separated from the rest of the world by more than 2,000 miles of ocean, Hawaii has an advantage over other remote states with low rates of infection and death. “As such, we’ve got to be more self-reliant, but we also had the opportunity to enact a quarantine, make it meaningful and, most importantly, know that we could really dramatically reduce the number of visitors we get.” “We are the most isolated community on the planet,” Ige told The Associated Press last week. People who do come face a two-week quarantine, stopping the flow of tens of thousands of tourists who typically arrive every day. David Ige did something no other state can – effectively seal its borders. Hawaii has among the lowest COVID-19 infection and mortality rates in the USA. HONOLULU – Flying to a faraway beach might seem like the perfect way to escape the pandemic, but for isolated Pacific islands, controlling the coronavirus means cutting off tourism. Watch Video: Honolulu comes to standstill amid virus outbreak
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