New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are imposing a joint travel advisory directing that visitors to states like Florida with high rates of coronavirus infection be quarantined for 14 days, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced at a joint news conference with his two neighboring governors.
“We have to make sure the virus doesn’t get back into an airplane,” Cuomo said during the Manhattan press conference where New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont appeared via live broadcast. .
“So we are announcing a joint travel notice for people coming from states with a high infection rate to be quarantined,” Cuomo said, noting that the traveler’s quarantine will last 14 days.
Cuomo said the notice, which takes effect at midnight, is “just for the simple reason that we work very hard to reduce the rate of viral transmission.”
The criteria for what will be considered a high infection rate is 10 COVID-19 infections per 100,000 people or a positivity rate of 10 percent or more on a seven-day moving average.
States that currently meet those criteria include Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Utah and Texas, according to Cuomo.
Florida now has more than 100,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus and saw a record 5,508 new positive cases on Wednesday.
Cuomo, however, admitted that the 14-day quarantine will be based on the honor system.
“You could argue that every law is an honor system until they catch you, right?” Cuomo said, adding, “You could violate quarantine until they catch you.”
The Empire State Governor noted that each of the three states “will make its own enforcement mechanism.”
“In New York, according to the travel advisory, you will be informed that you must quarantine for 14 days” if a visitor comes from one of the states with a high rate of coronavirus infection, Cuomo said.
Anyone who violates the quarantine address “may be subject to a court order,” fined, or forced into a mandatory quarantine.
New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut were among the most affected states in the United States when the coronavirus pandemic began.
“There were no states that really received a worse hand than our states,” Cuomo said.
“Look where we are now, we did a full 180 degrees,” Cuomo said. “We went from the highest cases, the highest viral transmission to some of the lowest rates in the country.”
Murphy called the travel advisory a “smart, common-sense move, as the three of us have really broken the backs of this virus.”
“If you’ve been in a state that has a high infection rate, do the right thing,” said the New Jersey governor.
Cuomo went on to say that there are 27 states in the US. USA They see an increase in rates of coronavirus infection.
“What you are doing is putting people’s lives at risk and damaging the economy,” he said while criticizing those states.
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