Travelers flying into New York from states with high infection rates of COVID-19 will be required to provide their contact information upon arrival or face a fine and court summons, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted Monday.
Passengers flying in from the 19 states on New York’s rolling quarantine list are now required to fill out a form detailing where they came from and where they’re going before they leave the airport, Cuomo announced during a press conference Monday.
TRAVELERS TO NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, CONNECTICUT ARE TOLD TO ISOLATE
“We can’t be in another situation where we have people coming from other states in the country bringing the virus,” Cuomo said.
The order comes one day after roughly one percent of over 50,000 people tested in the state, once the epicenter of the pandemic, had tested positive for the virus. Meanwhile, infection rates in other states around the country have skyrocketed. In order to keep history from repeating itself, Cuomo alongside other governors in the tri-state area are keeping a watchful eye on the rest of the country where cases are surging.
The airlines will hand out the forms to passengers during their flights, however, the forms will also be available online, Cuomo said.
If a traveler leaves the airport without filling out the form they will immediately be handed a summons with a $2,000 fine. What’s more, a traveler could then be ordered by a court to complete a mandatory quarantine, Cuomo added.
The order will be enforced at every airport in the state, Cuomo said, adding that “none of this is pleasant but we have gone through this before.”
CORONAVIRUS CASES SPIKE IN SUN BELT, OTHER STATES BACK OFF ON REOPENING
The order now applies to:
Alabama
Arkansas
Arizona
California
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Iowa
Idaho
Kansas
Louisiana
Mississippi
North Carolina
Nevada
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
In June, Cuomo announced that New York had successfully slowed the transmission of COVID-19. However, amid an increased threat of infection in various parts of the county and in an effort to keep New York on track, the state began requiring many travelers entering New York to quarantine for a period of 14 days. The order applied to states with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents, or higher than a 10 percent test positivity rate, over a seven-day rolling average.
Initially, Cuomo announced during an interview on CNN’s “New Day” that the state would conduct random checks in order to make sure passengers coming from hot spots in the country were in self-quarantine for a minimum of 14 days after arriving.
Monday’s order indicates that New York is cracking down even further on the quarantine rule as U.S. coronavirus cases surpassed 3.3 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“As states around the country experience increasing community spread, New York is taking action to ensure the continued safety of our phased reopening,” Cuomo said in June. “Our entire response to this pandemic has been by the numbers, and we’ve set metrics for community spread just as we set metrics for everything.”
On Sunday, out of 51,687 tests performed, 557 tests came back positive, a rate of 1.08 percent.
