If you’re visiting Hawaii in the near future, or at the holidays, this news is critical.
331 thoughts on “CVS Pulls Out Of Hawaii Testing | Vault + Others Overwhelmed”
Comments are closed.
If you’re visiting Hawaii in the near future, or at the holidays, this news is critical.
Comments are closed.
Walgreens online says they have “Diagnostic Lab Test (PCR)” 72 hours, “Rapid Diagnostic Test (ID NOW)” 24 hours, and Rapid Antigen Test (Binax NOW) as little as 1 hour. I don’t think the Antigen test is accepted for HI travel but don’t know if the Rapid Diagnostic Test is accepted. Does anyone know?
Dan…
Rapid Diagnostic test is a version of an NAAT and is acceptable (per communication to me from the Safe Travels Team). Antigen test is not acceptable.
But be careful and look at the map on Walgreens website. There is not a single Walgreens in our state that offers the Rapid Results test!
According to everything I have been able to figure out, the “ID NOW” rapid test is a PCR/NAAT test and is acceptable (it says so on the Walgreens COVID site). However the rapid antigen test is not. I hope I’m right because we have appointments scheduled with Walgreens on Friday morning for a Sunday morning flight this week!
Yes the Rapid diagnostic test is acceptable but not the antibody test from Walgreens. We used it and got the results back within 2 hours and traveled to big island November 5th and are still here. No quarantine.
Im surprised the legislature hasn’t made a move against Igenyet. He’s gone was to extreme in one way vs a good balance and it’s just killing Hawaii’s economy.
I wish I knew what the heck the criteria was for the State of Hawaii selection of “Trusted Partners”!?!?!?!
AFC runs out of tests. Vault doesn’t test those over 65 (at least in our state). Azova (Costco) is getting a worse and worse reputation AND is only available 5 days a week to start with! CVS has collapsed!
Here, the State offers free testing every day of the week. Yes, you have to sit on a line that is often hours long but at least you can drive home in 30-45 minutes afterwards! It is full PRC level testing with turnaround of less than 72 hours. It is a function of our State Department of Health but it’s not a “Trusted Partner”! It’s a freakin’ department of the state for heavens sake!
Why can’t a “sister” state honor that!?!?!?! Not only in our state but in others. Not everyone is out to “scam” Hawaii’s restrictions – more testing acceptability would solve at least one of the problems with all this! (And, BOH, I used the word “freakin’ with humor!)
Agree. This is absolutely ridiculous there are numerous Labs who are clia-certified who can conduct these tests and give you accurate results within 72 hours without you having to go through a million hoops. They have made it extremely difficult. Economy will suffer. Labcorp should be on there. Every urgent care who offers rapid testing with NAAT should be on their list beyond ridiculous
Is AFH 9(American Family Health) an approved provider for testing – and are rapid results approved? Thank you
Hi Cheryl.
It was hard to figure things out from their website. As someone pointed out, these are all individually owned. They are a trusted partner, and rapid tests as long as they are PCR will be accepted. https://hawaiicovid19.com/travel-partners/.
Aloha.
I called them because there happens to be an AFC near me and they told me that the rapid test is not a naat. No gurantee u will get pcr within 72 hrs
RODRIQUEZ…
There are two kinds of “Rapid Tests” – one is an NAAT test and the other is an antigen test. The first is allowed, the antigen test is not. They need to clarify which one they were talking about.
It appears in going through today’s list of authorized Covid19 testing facilities; it appears that there are none in San Diego. And the one that I had looked at before (Vault) may have difficulty in returning the results within 48 hours. So as of today it does not look good for anyone flying out of San Diego to Hawaii to book a flight or reserve a hotel in Hawaii. Not sure that the Hawaiian government is working on finding additional testing companies for travel to Hawaii this year. Not sure why they are not looking for additional testing facilities, the real looser in this conversation are the people that own small business and/or work in the travel industry.
I returned home to Honolulu yesterday on Hawaiian Airlines from Las Vegas and used one of Hawaiian Airlines partners (UMC) and was guaranteed our results before we arrived home (paid $130). We received our results online but UMC was supposed to send us a pdf confirmation so we could upload it to the Safe Travels Hawaii website and they did not. When we arrived in Honolulu and told them that we didn’t get the pdf from the company and offered to show them the testing results from MyChart, first they didn’t even know UMC was approved through Hawaiian Airlines, then they told us that they are not an approved facility. After showing them the Hawaiian website, they said ok if you get the state approved form you can get out of the quarantine. Their list of approved testing sites listed “Hawaiian Airlines” but did not further list the approved partners that they use. It was a mess. We were there for 3 hours. It seems like UMC didn’t know they had to send a pdf with our results on a State of Hawaii approved form. In the end, we signed the quarantine papers. They told us to upload the results as soon as we get them and then the quarantine would be lifted. If all this happened to us today (with the new rules) it would have been a different story.
Question…if you show up at the airport without results are you still able to fly? I understand that we would have to quarantine without results. Just not sure how this all works. Mahalo
Hi Rebecca.
You do not need to have results in order to fly. However, there is confusion and conflicting language on the Safe Travels website as to whether you need to have the negative test results before departure for Hawaii or upon arrival in Hawaii. We’ve responded to that a couple of times already in the comments above. Let us know if there are other questions on this.
Aloha.
Where should travelers in Colorado and Nebraska go to for Covid testing that’s Hawaii approved?
Wow….I’ve been on here acknowledging the fact that this has been a very difficult situation for all and Hawaii has done a good job of keeping us safe, but…..this is a total failure. No excuse for this and the worst of all is the kneejerk reaction to require a full 14 day quarantine for someone whose test results get delayed but turn out negative….totally safe and healthy but the State wants them to stay in their room for two weeks anyway, right.
Hand the entire testing situation over to the airlines serving Hawaii and pay them for their efforts. Hawaiian has been doing an outstanding job under difficult political circumstances and Alaska has been proactive in Seattle. United to a lesser degree but any of them could handle this better then than what’s going on now at the State level.
Aloha to all, this will change….I think.
Maybe Governor I’ve should have the same nickname as Governor Newsom- Governor Flip Flop.
This is worse than a soap opera!! You never know what to expect next! We are scheduled February 15-March 11.
There are so many variables!!! Shreek!!!
Hopefully we can make our Walgreens testing appointments (our only option in Atlanta) mid January for February. But then we have to commit to plane tickets!! Our condo maintenance fee is a sunk cost. It gets paid whether we enjoy the condo or not.