Of those, 44 arrived with a test pending that later turned out positive. Screenshot: Olelo/2020Īs of last week, about 270,000 people had traveled under Hawaii’s Safe Travels program, as the testing regime is called. David Ige’s order makes a tight window even tighter. “We must take every precaution to ensure the safety of our community, and that our hospitals have the capacity to care for those in need of treatment.” Peter Ingram, president and chief executive of Hawaiian Airlines, told a state House COVID-19 committee that Gov. “While only a handful of visitors receive a positive test each day following their arrival, it was enough to compel us to make the policy change, especially as more people travel to Hawaiʻi to celebrate the holidays,” Ige said in the statement. Ige on Monday issued a statement responding to the criticism, saying the change was designed to protect residents, with cases rising in other locales and the holidays bringing greater numbers of travelers. “This doesn’t serve the public very well,” Saiki said. Saiki said the latest move – done with what seemed like no input from key leaders – was a bad one. Ige is normally known as a methodical decision-maker who at times has been criticized for his consensus-driven approach. Asked by Saiki if the Ige administration had talked to industry leaders before announcing the change, Hannemann said he had met with leading executives and, “No one indicated they had been consulted.” “We have grave concerns,” said Mufi Hannemann, a former Honolulu Mayor who now heads the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association, a tourism industry group. Members of the Hawaii House Select Committee on COVID-19 Economic and Financial Preparedness used Monday’s bi-monthly meeting to criticize Ige’s decision, with several chief executives beyond the tourism industry weighing in, along with Hawaii House Speaker Scott Saiki. The order applies to visitors and returning residents. Ige’s tweak of the pre-travel testing program has drawn criticism from business and political leaders. Now, in brief, travelers must have a negative test result before they depart for Hawaii or they’ll be stuck in quarantine in the islands for two weeks, even if the test indicates they don’t have COVID-19 when the result arrives. 15, let travelers who hadn’t gotten test results upon arrival go into quarantine but get out when the negative test result came in. The change, announced during a news conference on Thursday, means people flying into Hawaii must have a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival to bypass the state’s required 14-day quarantine. David Ige’s change to Hawaii’s pre-travel COVID-19 testing program has caused an outcry among business and political leaders who say Ige made the change abruptly without talking to tourism industry executives, based on a small number of infected travelers who slipped through the cracks.
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