Turbulent times As Questions Remain.
131 thoughts on “Testing Approved As Hawaii Visitors Demand Essential Information”
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Turbulent times As Questions Remain.
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I am all about testing but who pays for it? How will you get a quick test before leaving?
Are there Hawaiian stores that ship to the mainland that we can purchase from to help them earn some revenue during the travel bans?
Shelli,
Yes, there are many! You can Google Hawaiian Shopping or on whatever items you are looking for. We live in Oregon now, but I wanted to get a few more Hawaiian print face masks for our family, so that’s what I Googled and I found several local vendors. Once you start to look, you’ll be surprised at what you find.
Na Mea Hawai’i is a lovely store in Honolulu that sells beautiful Hawaiian products and books, and they will ship.
Kapaia Stichery in Lihue is one of my favorite stores! I can’t sew a stitch, but they have gorgeous items and the women there are so friendly.
Maui Quilt Shop in Kihei has great Hawaiian items. It’s a small place, but the women are very nice.
If you start looking around, you will find many local places that would probably be glad to have your business. I like to buy from local people myself. Good luck to you!
Shelli G, that’s a good example of spreading Aloha on the mainland, Mahalo Nui Loa!
You get it! All of the safeguards being talked about is simply meant to keep Hawaii the special place it is. We did great throughout this, which is amazing when you consider all the travelers we get from all over the world. Have to give the local government a lot of credit for that and their quick and effective response.
I think some credit has to go to Hawaiian Airlines. They seemed to be involved in the early press conferences
and I’m guessing were instrumental in the decision making process. As Hawaii’s flagship carrier they had a big stake in this deal.
My take anyway….and when we reopen I’m planning on using them and supporting the local jobs they create.
It’s going to be an interesting rebuild, but in my opinion the Hawaii that comes back from this will be a very special place indeed!
Do you think Oahu will be open for overseas visitors in November this year
Every time I read about what the local politicians are doing to Hawaii with their stringent lockdown over this, I want to laugh. However, I also know the extreme financial burden it lays upon the people of Hawaii and it then makes me sad. However (yes, another flipflop, on a rollercoaster of emotion), I know that the people of Hawaii elected these politicians, so they are reaping the crop they sowed, so I feel indifferent.
I could not help but consider the similarities here to that of the story about Roman Emperor Nero watching his city burn. Since it has been a long time since I read anything on Nero, I started with the trusty google search engine. With it I found an interesting short story about debunking the myth that Nero fiddled while the city burned. However, the story they do relay is strikingly similar to Hawaii’s situation.
Go to history.com, search there for “Nero’s Rome Burns”. The similarities of Hawaii and that recalling of history are striking. It is a short read of only four paragraphs. It is the last paragraph where you can draw the parallels.
So the question begs: Will Hawaii’s politicians be judged in history to be similar to Nero?
For us to be tested here in Utah you have to go through a whole questionnaire, and if you have no symptoms they say congratulations! Stay home!
Looks like a positive step. Need to get Walgreens and CVS lined up to give the tests. Might make sense for airlines to contract them to give the 20 minute tests from pop ups at the airport. With the reduction in flights, a gate could be turned over to a testing center, What needs to exist is clarity, How long do the tests say current? If I fly to the mainland for a weekend trip do I need two tests or is one valid for a week? Certainly better than 14 day quar antine and enables jobs to return to the islands whilst reducing risk of infection.
Unfortunately there are always those who think life should fit around them and anything that inconveniences them is unacceptable.
Testing should be done on air crews and military (done by the military) as well. No point in testing all the pax if a flight atendant or pilot is carrying infection asymptomatically.
I find this all very Interesting, I work in a Dental Office as a Certified Dental Assistant, We now PRESCREEN our Patients over the Phone,and as they Enter the Office we ask them to WEAR a mask,they are then REQUIRED to rinse with a Medicated MouthWASH,Cleanse their hands with Sanitizer or WASH with Soap and water, lastly WE check their Temperatures before Start Treatment. Our Costs of doing Business have gone Up as Well, Where as a box of S3 masks 50 count was $8.99 prior to this COVID19, Now it is $ 50.00.Saftey People, Common Sense.
So, for me with Travel, I would gladly have a TEST before getting on a Plane.
Aloha. Thanks as always for your information. I thought I would put my 2 cents in here about our situation.
We are very fragile here on Maui. Also Kauai. Our health care system cannot even handle day to day illness (2 months to see a doc for a friend with serious issues.). No flying to Oahu to get care without serious hoop jumping if at all. another friend just had a heart attack. They flew him to Oahu but his wife could not go to help him. he had to fly alone both ways.
Ok so they test people who want to visit. a negative test. Great. What about if they get exposed and become contagious before they fly? whole plane exposed. Not to mention all the false testing, both positive and negative. On Maui 1 sick person came to work at Maui Memorial Hospital. That created 50 known cases of both patients and staff. We don’t even really know who they exposed in the community. Then there is the fact that people are NOT following the quar antine. Some are caught but others are not. It is just a really really delicate balance of economy vs health. We love and need tourists and also have to be very slow and careful. I appreciate that they are opening local community and then maybe inter island first to see how that goes. it is going to be a slow process and I think we all have to surrender to that.
Hawaii of all places knows this issue. Remember Captain Cook……
Hi Ane.
Yes related medical issues are complicated here, and everywhere. Where there is no visitation, and here where for anything serious air travel is required.
Thanks for all your comments!
Aloha. R/J.
I think it is important to set expectations. Testing is not a panacea. THe silver bullet will come with an effective vac cination and strict rules to make people have it. No use if a large portion of society says it is against their politicis or religion.
As to effectiveness. A test may not show infections only recently acquired and yet to replicate in large numbers. A test will not show infections after the test. A test can give false negatives where vi rus reolication is only starting and false positives from other vir uses.
However 14 day quar antine is only effective for a) those who show symptoms up til 14 days. for some it takes 21 days. Some who are asymptomatic or woth light symptoms could go out after 14 days and still be infectious.
So nothing is absolutely safe. My view would be preflight test 2-3 days before flight, certificate to airline on check in. Test at gate and positives given second test if both positive refused boarding. Quar antine for 3 days and then test at home pack. If negative, call clinic arrange full test and certificate goes to Helaht Department.
Also as they become reliable test for antigens to prove immunity. Currently these are better but still not reliable. In an ideal world, the higher the rate of people who have had this and been cured the better. However those who have had it the worst seem to have the most antibodies, so asymptomatic infections may not deliver sufficient antigens to prevent re-infection.
Summary. Nothing is perfect. Use testing, quarantine and any other means to reduce risk but balance it with giving people jobs and providing the state with the revemue to pay for schools, roads, social welfare, police, fire etc.
What we do not see comments on is the need to be smart. GO to the beach and have fun with your family but repsect others, keep your distance, do not leave potentially infected items behind, be particularly respectful to Kupuna and do not forget this disease can kill Keikei as well and has done.
Maybe Hawaii offers rapid test upon arrival to Hawaii. Cant the results be read in 15 mins?
And the false negatives? Not to mention, if you have a plane of 200 passengers, and it the time it takes to take the test, 15 minutes for results each passenger, it’ll take over 3000 minutes to test one plane of 200 passengers. Then, you have a 15% rate of false negatives. Out of 100 people, you’ll have 15 who are actually infected and walking around, infecting people without a clue.
(A NY University study found as high as a 40% failure rate on the 15 minute Abbott test. They suspended it’s use in their system until further study.)
Also, you cannot force a person to get a test. The idea has been floated that passengers who refuse to test would have to agree with quar antine for 14 days. But we have the 14 day quar antine now for arrivals- that’s not being enforced. (Article in the local news yesterday about a local family returning home and required to do the 14 days. No one ever checked up on them.) All the violators have been caught because locals have reported them- not because the authorities were doing their job, for them.
Most of the ones caught were caught because they posted photos on social media showing what idiots they were. We are not talking about the sharpest tools in the toolbox here.
What states in the U.S. have rapid testing at cvs / walgreens currenty?
In theory I think rapid testing before travel to Hawaii would
work keeping tourists and residents safe however we are probably a minimum of 6 months away from that kind of testing being available in the U.S. I think Hawaii is in big trouble if other tourist destinations allow travel without these stringent requirements and Hawaii doesn’t
soften its stance. Can The Hawaiian economy survive another 6 months with little or no tourism ?
Agree
Yay. The threat, that the Hawai’i economy can’t survive without exploitation and neo-colonialism! Gotta get back to mass, uncontrolled tourism- STAT!
In 2008, we got hit bad by the crash. It took 4 years for the economy to start to bounce back. A huge amount of talk about diversifying our economy, more sustainable, less dependent on mass, uncontrolled tourism. Unfortunately, it was just talk.
People really want change here. You read in in local FB pages, you read it in the op-eds. But the government is in a rush to go back to same old, same old.
Going back, because “we can’t survive without tourism! Eek!” will be the end of us. Have you ever heard about being loved to death? That’s what’s happening here- the environment is being loved to death. We need to change the way we do tourism. Eco tourism, agri tourism, more culturally sensitive. We need to control the destination, not tourism controlling the destination. Quality over quantity. We can do it, if there’s enough political will. Nepal has very controlled tourism. They control the amount, they control lodging, tours, activity. They make a lot of money off tourism, on THEIR terms. We need to take a lesson from them.