As we continue with confusing and differing rules by island, including Kauai’s complete shutdown this week, each island seems to be on a collision course with the others. It’s a good reminder that what happens on one island can impact all and send a confusing message to the public that is bad for everyone. Plus, the current rules around testing and quarantine lie somewhere between difficult and impossible in terms of visitors’ ability to easily comply.
Visitors are left wondering if Hawaii is ready for travelers or not.
Hawaii’s issues were compounded twice just recently. First when Gov. Ige suddenly changed policies to require that all mainland arrivals without proof of negative test on landing go into a mandatory 14-day quarantine (regardless of whether or not a negative result was subsequently produced). Previously they could quarantine just until those results were presented. Then again when the governor surprisingly reversed his prior thinking and allowed Kauai to go in a completely different direction this week, with a mandatory 14-day quarantine regardless of testing.
The risks of quarantine due to the inability to get test results are too much for most. Many feel the state needs a well thought out plan that includes both pre-travel and on-arrival testing. Both Lt. Governor Josh Green and Honolulu Mayor Caldwell are proposing just that, with rapid antigen testing on arrival. The Hawaii House of Representatives’ COVID committee agrees. There’s been no word from Governor Ige so far but something is definitely about to change.
Stakeholders are livid.
This week’s Kauai shutdown poses bigger problems for the entire state. When one island can make its own decisions, and there is no unified statewide plan, it can wreak havoc across such a small state. Cancellations are now up significantly across all islands and future bookings are down, just since Kauai’s plan went into effect.
Bellwether Hawaiian Airlines believes that the most recent, rapid-fire Safe Travels program changes and inconsistent policies for each island are resulting in confusion and are counter-productive to the program’s intentions including the well-being of Hawaii.
The Kauai Chamber of Commerce is also not in favor and wrote, “the 14-day quarantine meant a sudden and unexpected shut down for many chamber members, and could lead to the permanent closure of many of our small businesses, putting members of our community out of work.”
Adversaries concur.
Prior Honolulu mayor and hospitality spokesperson Mufi Hannemann indicated that the travel industry is trying to work with Kauai’s mayor to reach some type of resolution. Mufi is opposed to any quarantine, especially a 14-day one, which now far exceeds the most recent CDC recommendations of 7 days with testing. He foresees huge issues with furloughs and job losses on the horizon.
Kauai’s financial meltdown.
With visitors canceling travel, tangible evidence of Kauai’s new 14-day quarantine that started Wednesday is already hitting home. Come Monday, the Grand Hyatt Kauai will again close after reopening just a few weeks ago, which means that many hundreds of people will again be unemployed, with no relief. At the peak, the hotel employs close to 1,000. The Sheraton will also close for the foreseeable future and with that, its hundreds of employees will be out of work. To say how serious this is, here’s an interesting analogy. On Kauai, road traffic is associated with the working hours of the hospitality industry. When workers get off of their shift at 3 pm, traffic markedly picks up. And when that industry shutters, we have massive unemployment and no traffic. Period.
Airlines have cut flight schedules.
Almost all mainland flights to and from Kauai have stopped. The only daily mainland nonstop, for now, is the essential service from Los Angeles on Delta Airlines. There is a smattering of once-weekly flights too, but those may or may not even operate. And the airlines obviously have no idea how or when to plan for a resumption in service.
Restaurants and activities shutting down too on Kauai.
We don’t have any list of what will or won’t remain open and it is really anyone’s guess at this point. Many businesses had recently reopened before this week’s closure. Those who believe the 14-day quarantine will be short may again try to make a run without closing down, while others could succumb in the interim. There has been no word from Kauai’s mayor as to what to expect, or when.
Resort bubbles: you say it’s an epic failure.
What do we need to say beyond your hundreds and hundreds of comments saying no way in he** would you get locked at an overpriced Kauai hotel, wearing an ankle bracelet. Kauai’s mayor indicated that there are now five Kauai resorts approved to operate resort bubbles, with several more in the pipeline. Those now include the Kauai Mariott in Lihue. An interesting question is whether the beach in front of Kalapaki Bay could become part of their COVID bubble?
The bigger picture is unemployment and much worse.
As you may know, Hawaii has the highest rate of unemployment in the USA. And that is just the beginning of the economic pain here. The loss of tax revenue to the state will have a huge and long-lasting impact across the board, from road repairs and infrastructure maintenance to public areas and all facilities.
Far worse, however, is that suicides from earlier this year are still fresh in our minds when there were four unrelated suicides on Kauai in one week. It is widely believed that those were at least in part related to the COVID crisis and the collapse of the island’s economy. That may of course compounded by other issues including substance abuse. These were all young men under age 40, per Kauai’s police chief.
A statewide plan is needed for visitors.
Lt. Governor Josh Green and Honolulu Mayor Caldwell can finally agree. Green said that despite Kauai’s limited medical resources, it actually has more capacity than what has been reported. Also, Kauai’s medical system is supported by and is a part of Honolulu’s larger Hawaii Pacific Health facilities.
The state’s House Committee on COVID-19 concurs with Green and Caldwell that arrivals who tested within 72-hour of departure be exempted from quarantine when they obtain a negative rapid test result upon arrival here in Hawaii and show a negative Trusted Partner pre-travel testing result. “This solution, in partnership with the stakeholders who will support it, is a good plan for this current time.” That according to the public health and strategy and communications subcommittees which are headed by Hawaii’s largest health insurer, HMSA, and its largest health/hospital provider, Hawaii Pacific Health.
Kauai’s Kawakami on the other hand is hanging hopes that vaccines are on the short-term horizon that will provide ansswers and help alleviate the concerns. We fear he is far too optimistic in that regard, with both the long term effectiveness and the willingness of people to take a new vaccine still in question.
Has the Kauai Quarantine Changed Your Travel Plans to Other Islands? We are interested in your feedback. If you had a Kauai reservation, did you change to another island or cancel your Hawaii vacation entirely? If you were planning a Hawaii vacation to any of the islands, did the Kauai quarantine make you second guess your decision to come to Hawaii?
Here are excerpts from some of your many comments today:
“The current system is too “filled with landmines” for potential visitors.” (Kimo)
“With the constant rule changes we have crossed Hawaii off indefinitely. We love the islands, the culture and especially the people…the reckless politicians not so much.” (John T)
“Hawaii is not a cheap vacation, and I don’t want to risk being quarantined.” (Nancy W)
“The Kauai Quarantine had us abandon the island for the first time in 44 trips! We’ll be visiting Oahu, thank Mr. Mayor!” (Barbara M)
“Kauai closed down with literally no notice. Who wants to believe that the other islands won’t do the same.” (Michelle K)
Please add your thoughts.
We had booked a 2 week trip for our family of 6 in December & cancelled it because of the restrictions. We will instead travel to Florida where there are less hoops to go through. It really breaks our heart… we love Hawaii & have visited several years running. I hope the governor removes the restrictions sooner then later.
First off I agree with Bill C.
The state of affairs is the same in Hawaii as all liberal run states.
We deserve the government we have!
As long as you keep voting in career politicians you will have to deal with their stupidity and crookedness.
Remember a career politician is only that because they are either too stupid or too ugly to do
anything else with their lives.
A good example of why we deserve the government we have is they want to give you $600 for not having an income for 8 or 9 months, that works out to be about $75 dollars a month for you while they continue to get in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in their salary plus all the under the table things they do.
Another example of why we deserve the government we have is they want us on Obama Care but they won’t go on it themselves, they have the best medical treatment available.
Another example of why we deserve the government we have is how a lot of the liberal politicians that have been handing down draconian rules to us aren’t following themselves, “Do as I say but not as I do”.
A good local example locally is how the mayor of Honolulu started tearing apart Sherwood Forest in Waimanalo for payback for his buddies when people weren’t allowed to protest, it just shows the wannabe emperor has no clothes.
So as long as the citizen put up with it and continue to be sheep, yes we deserve the government we have wholeheartedly until we stand up and say, “Hell no we aint gonna take it no more”!
LANA K…
I have a real dislike for political rants on this site but in this case I feel it necessary to point out… In case you’ve forgotten, our “government” has been conservative for the last four years so please don’t blame our current state of affairs, nationally or locally, on “liberals”.
Barbara you didn’t read my comment correctly, it has nothing to do with conservatives, the major problem is career politicians of all stripes.
First off I agree with Bill C.
The state of affairs is the same in Hawaii as all liberal run states.
We deserve the government we have!
As long as you keep voting in career politicians you will have to deal with their stupidity and crookedness.
Remember a career politician is only that because they are either too stupid or too ugly to do
anything else with their lives.
A good example of why we deserve the government we have is they want to give you $600 for not having an income for 8 or 9 months, that works out to be about $75 dollars a month for you while they continue to get in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in their salary plus all the under the table things they do.
Another example of why we deserve the government we have is they want us on Obama Care but they won’t go on it themselves, they have the best medical treatment available.
Another example of why we deserve the government we have is how a lot of the liberal politicians that have been handing down draconian rules to us aren’t following themselves, “Do as I say but not as I do”.
A good local example locally is how the mayor of Honolulu started tearing apart Sherwood Forest in Waimanalo for payback for his buddies when people weren’t allowed to protest, it just shows the wannabe emperor has no clothes or ba..s.
So as long as the citizen put up with this bull…t and continue to be sheep, yes we deserve the government we have wholeheartedly until we stand up and say, “Hell no we aint gonna take it no more”!
The entire state is committing suicide at the hands of its leaders. The only solution is to open fully without any restrictions and go about life normally. Treat the ill and mourn the 0.1% or less who succumb to the illness. 99.9% are healthy or recovered.
I won’t live my life for the .1%. We will all die eventually. For most, that will be before we reach 90 years old. No one lives forever here on earth.
The citizens of Hawaii are already looking at 2-10 years of hardship. Life is not that long to suffer this self-imposition.
I find it interesting how easily you write off the lives of .1% of the population. BTW, I’m not so sure that number is correct considering that we are nearing 300K already in this country. In either case, you’re also ignoring the suffering of the people who end up in the hospital, and/or in the ICU. The fact that our hospitals are nearing capacity, and soon in some places they are going to have to perform tirage (i.e. decide who lives and who dies). And now we have the UK variant in this country which is more contagious. Pretending that nothing is going on and writing off .1% of the population in order to help the economy is, in my opinion, somewhat hard-hearted.
Bill’s not going to make too many friends at the Senior Center with that attitude. And we did just pass 0.1% = 330,000 (0.1% of 330M) recently. According to my internet, we’re approaching 340K. It’s a tough virus on the old/health compromised, to be sure. There didn’t used to be so many elderly/health compromised people in the past pandemics, because was rare anyone lived that long, and we manage to keep people alive nowadays that even a generation ago would not have made it.
But, this is a travel to Hawaii blog; not a public policy blog. The only question is whether some balance of travel/economic life is possible while trying to shield vulnerable people from the virus. Should not have to be all or nothing either way, although some people (Bill C) would go all one way, and others (maybe Kauai Doug?) would go all the other. Reality is that it continues to spread in populated areas. Mask mandates don’t seem to matter. It’s not a Red state Blue state thing, as badly as some people want it to be.
I agree, I think Bill needs to steer clear of the senior center, that’s for sure! I also agree that this isn’t a public policy blog, however, public policy does have an effect on travel to Hawaii. Finally, while I wish that the public policy response to the pandemic had never been politicized, it was and continues to be. The divide between Democrats and Republicans in regards to mask-wearing, for example, shows this quite clearly. Again, this is an important factor in regards to this blog and travel in general since it’s been shown that mask-wearing is the best way to prevent the spread of the virus, and yet there’s a significant part of our population who just doesn’t believe in it. This forces those who are trying to address the pandemic in our governments to utilize other, more economically devastating measures such as lockdowns and travel bans. Take a look at this article for more details: pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/29/both-republicans-and-democrats-cite-masks-as-a-negative-effect-of-covid-19-but-for-very-different-reasons/
“On the other hand, nearly one-in-five of all respondents who mentioned the word “mask” (18%) specifically called masks unnecessary, ineffective, oppressive or unfair; stated that they refuse to wear masks; expressed skepticism about the COVID-19 pandemic in general; or expressed a belief that the pandemic is being used to manipulate Americans for political gain.
These responses were far more common from Republicans: 27% of all mask mentions by Republicans expressed such views, compared with just 3% among Democrats who brought up masks. Looked at another way, Republicans accounted for 92% of those expressing skepticism or opposition to masks.”
So how do we fix this? How do we get the virus under enough control to begin to open back up again? Considering that it will take Months before there is widespread vaccination do we just hunker down and wait?
We make an annual Jan trip to HI, often changing up which islands we visit. 2021 plan: Maui-1 wk & Kauai-2 wks. Plans made in May, hoping things will be better C19-wise. HI institutes the Safe Travel plan—sounds good—a way to go to Hawaii safely. I hear the details, think we better change our plans—cancel Maui and go to Kauai for 3 weeks—then we don’t have to worry about testing when changing islands. Much time on the phone changing flights. I look for approved hotels on Kauai where we can stay while we wait for results if we don’t receive them before we depart. There is no approved list of hotels for Kauai. I found a list compiled by a realty company but when calling Hawaii Tourism, they had nothing. The first place I booked, thankfully sent me an email clearly stating we couldn’t quarantine there if that was necessary. I canceled that booking and reserved at a Hilton. At this point, I feel my bases are covered. But, then, the Governor of Hawaii declares results have to be available before departure. CVS, a trusted partner, says they can’t guarantee pre-departure results so go elsewhere. The final straw was the Governor approving Kauai opting out of the Safe Travel program for an unspecified amount of time. I reluctantly and sadly decided to cancel our trip. We talked about going to Maui instead, but we would still have to have results before we leave & no one can guarantee that will happen. Yes, I suppose we could change our flights until the results are available but then would we risk not being within 72 hours? I’m worn down by all the changes & uncertainties. There are too many restrictions. If you can’t produce your negative results you can’t rent a car & you can’t stay in a short term rental & there’s the question of how to get food & you have to spend two weeks in a hotel room. I give up. We will look for somewhere else to go. Hopefully we will be back in January 2022. Hopefully, Hawaii will be able to ride this out and not lose more lives & businesses.
We’ve been visiting Kauaʻi for many years from our home in Canada, and will do so again, but not this year. Once a vaccination is available we will, once vaccinated, be back. In the meantime, we are ordering favorite items such as paʻakai (sea salt) via mail from vendors on the island in an attempt to help the economy, although the crazy postal charges mean that we have reluctantly declined several sellers charges recently. Aloha a hui hou.
We canceled our Ohau trip scheduled for the end of December based on the fear of doing everything in compliance with Hawaii’s Safe Travels Program and still having to quarantine for part or all of our vacation. All the changes are confusing and create too much uncertainty. Hope to visit one day post Covid19.
Im intending to travel to Maui the end of the month. At the moment Kaiser (I’m a member) is running behind on test results. There is a chance I will not have my results back by my departure from Oakland. I’m a little hesitant to travel given the possibility of a quarantine.
For the cost and risk of possibly ending up spending an entire vacation stuck in a hotel room, and being treated like a convict, I will be looking for other places in Polynesian to vacation rather than support Hawaii’s fear mongering lefty politicians.
Mahalo! Try American Samoa.