The governors from New York, Connecticut and New Jersey on Wednesday announced that individuals traveling to the tri-state area from states experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy in a virtual joint-press conference Wednesday announced a joint travel advisory, which will go into effect at midnight, that will require individuals traveling from states including Arkansas, Alabama, Arizona, South Carolina, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Utah and Washington to quarantine for 14 days.
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“All individuals traveling from states with significant community spread of COVID into NY, NJ, or CT must quarantine for 14 days,” Cuomo tweeted.
“It’s just common sense,” Cuomo said. “We don’t want to see the infection rate increase here.”
He added: “This is a uniform policy across the three states. Each state will be responsible for the enforcement of that policy within their state.”
The criteria for states that have a high infection rate are 10 infections per 100,000 residents on a seven-day rolling average or 10 percent of the state’s total population infected on a seven-day rolling average, according to Cuomo.
“The northeast region is taking this seriously,” Lamont said Wednesday, noting that Connecticut will do everything it can to let visitors know they can come to the state, but must “come safely.”
“We need to do things right inside the four walls in our respective states,” Murphy added. “The last thing we need to do right now is to subject our folks to another round.”
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Both Cuomo and Lamont, earlier this month, hinted at the possibility of quarantine for individuals traveling from states seeing a new surge in positive coronavirus cases.
Infection rates in Texas have doubled since late May, and on Tuesday, the state reached a 12th consecutive day of record COVID-19 hospitalizations with more than 4,000. That amounts to a more than 170 percent increase in hospitalizations since Memorial Day.
And in states like Florida, officials are seeing more than 4,000 new cases of the novel coronavirus per day since its reopening. And in South Carolina, the Department of Health and Environmental Control reported record increases in daily cases within the past week.
As of Wednesday, the U.S. reported nearly 2.4 million positive cases of COVID-19 and has seen more than 121,000 deaths.
