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31 thoughts on “$60M Hawaii Safe Travels Isn’t Dead Yet”

  1. Jared X

    I’m sure the total cost of that boondoggle was more like $100,000,000… certainly many times that when you factor in the lost revenue from hundreds of thousands–if not millions–of completely healthy travelers that did not come to Hawaii due to the Kafkaesque requirements that more than likely had little to no net effect on the COVID spread in Hawaii. But, I guess we’ll never know what the net effect would have been had Hawaii just done what every other state did–common sense masking, etc.

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    2. DEB T

      You read it wrong, it’s the residents that went out of State, came back, said they’d quarantine then didn’t, community spread! That 9th state! Viva Lost Wages

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  3. TB

    Covid percentage pretty much what we expected. 1% from out of state, not quite worth spending $64million on for safe travels. However, it fits the Governor’s narrative of keeping everyone afraid and living in fear and cost so many jobs. Amazing!!!! What a shame!! This is the 1st time I’ve said this.

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  4. Jim E

    Safe Travels and it’s infrastructure (including facial recognition technology was an effective and helpful idea. Perpetuating the technology makes sense. However perpetuating the bureaucracy supporting it has the danger of perpetuating a cure for which there is no longer a disease. This idea is no surprise for we should know by now that government regardless of party tends to perpetuate bureaucracy long after it has served its purpose. Jim E

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  6. Greg M

    So much for keeping all us “virus-infected” mainland travelers out of the islands, as suspected all along it was mainly the non vaccinated locals. Waiting for the next study to come out that shows that it isn’t all the mainlanders who are destroying the beaches/reefs etc. Like our money now (rhetorical)?

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  7. Chris S

    Sadly nothing in this report was a surprise to me. Safe travels was a farce in my opinion and a waste of tax dollars. This is coming from a resident and not a tourist. A teenager can spend money more wisely than our government.

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    1. Randy R

      Governor Ige never saw a ‘Hand-out’ he didn’t like! This, the same guy that broke the State’s Unemployment Compensation upside down over $500M while collecting the Federal Funds for additional compensation as people sat home. Now, the Service Industries of which Hawaii depends cannot get staffing as Employee’s are not coming back to work and Hotels at exorbitant prices provide less Service. This, while tertiary Retail & Dining that was Tourist driven is hamstrung for the same reason!

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  8. Joan L

    How in the world can the state say that covid cases were only 1 % were associated with out of state travellers. When will the lies stop. Kauai closed down essentialy due to the 2 week quarantine. We had under 100 cases that year. As soon as kauai opened up to tourists flying here the cases soared. I am completely disgusted.

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    1. J.T.

      I bet you never left Kauai. I’ve live here over 30 years and left 15 times during the pandemic. All over the U.S. and to several countries. Never got Covid, but then again, I take care of my body and eat well and exercise every day. Koolaid anyone?

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    2. Cee H

      I’m a BI resident. Safe travels was very effective in the beginning. Cases skyrocketed when travelers were able to stop testing with “proof of vaccination”. There were documented cases of forged vaccine cards (some caught at airport, others identified after return to mainland,) and we all know the virus did not originate here! Vaccines do prevent serious disease, but not infection/spread of variants, so in 20/20 hindsight it now appears that ‘not testing vaccinated arrivals’ was unwise.

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      1. David B

        The problem, Cee, is that the Progressive narrative to which Hawaii sticks stated unequivocally – at least until Omnicrom force-injected reality – that “vaccinated” people did not spread the virus.

        FWIW, the fact that Hawaii allowed travelers with shots to skip the “trusted partner” testing PITA, probably incentivized a lot of people to get the shots who may not have otherwise done so. This was definitely the case in our household.

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  9. MaurW

    Confirm please what you mean Safe Travels isn’t dead yet? Is it going to be re-instated in the near future? Thank you BOH

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        1. Stephanie M

          Aloha Joan L,

          You cannot. You have entered the Twilight Zone and there is no return. Please create an account and a password and navigate to the self help tab and follow the drop-down menu for further instructions. You’ll figure it out in time.
          Sweet dreams!

          1
  10. Don K.

    National use for the supposedly Safe Travels Program!? And who didn’t see that possibility coming?

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