74 thoughts on “Layered Reopening Gaining Global Traction | Other Islands Shutter Until 2021”

  1. Ige, needs to get hit upside of the head
    ( with a coconut 🥥 ) Perhaps it will wake him up!
    What we need is with all passengers arriving in Hawaii to be given a Covid 19
    test upon arrival at the airport.
    I thought Hawaii was part of the United States, not a 3rd World Country.

  2. If someone self quarantined for 14 days in Kauai and one month later flew to Hilo, does self quarantine start all over again in Hilo?

  3. Thanks for keeping us updated. We have moved back, then cancelled two prior trips to the islands this year. The State of Hawaii has no reasonable plan to re-open and (probably no fault of theirs) I don’t think they will be able to come up with anything in the next few months. I think the only hope is for a vaccine. Hopefully, we could see that in 2 to 3 months unless the politicians get in the way.

  4. Nope. Still a travel bubble and still being treated like a criminal. How does this benefit the rest of the Hawaii businesses outside the resorts and do you have to wait until you get there to see if the area you traveled from draws the short straw? They need to give up this stupid bubble idea and set a date to reopen and stick to it. As the old saying goes, “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig”. Layered reopening monitoring your every move and still being confined to a resort is still a travel bubble. If Gov. Ige and the Lt. Gov. monitor this website they will see how grossly unpopular this travel bubble idea is. I honestly think they are just throwing these random ideas out there to make people think they are actually doing something about the situation. Tell you what…if you were to tell the Gov and Lt. Gov. that they were not getting paid until they have a solid workable plan in place..it would happen immediately. The utter incompetence of the Hawaiian governing body is mind boggling.

    1. Incompetence is people who think Hawaii is a destination playground and think that they’re not susceptible to this virus or the cause of it. Visitors and residents have broken travel quarantine rules. What will it take for people to understand that this is a serious issue? Hawaii is having problems with contact tracing as well. I’ve watched the local news and see how people blatantly disregard social distancing…having large gatherings and not wearing face masks. Now our hospitals have been overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases! It’s disturbing to hear that people just don’t freaking care about the safety and health of others or themselves! So if shutting down the island to contain the spreading of COVID-19 to teach people to be more mindful and responsible because your life and your freedom can be limited or taken away just like that.

  5. I’m planning on coming to the big island in October of 2021 for 2 weeks.I would like to be kept aware of any plans about closers around that time.

  6. But, what about the staff catering to such visitors? We’ll need extensive protections and/or they must also be quarantined, tested, and endure long periods away from their families. Please consider writing about how we are to protect our workers and improve their compensation for undertaking such risk.

    1. Lani, That is exactly what I thought about when they started talking about bubble resorts. The staff risk needs to be considered. Staff working there will either have to take their jobs back or lose their unemployment. If workers go back, they will have significant health risks especially if no testing of visitors coming in. Are they just getting off confined planes with others who may or may have not been tested.? Do workers go home to their families at the end of the day taking possible virus home to the kids who then attend classes with other children. Do workers risk bringing the virus into multi generational homes and putting the elders at risk? Are workers quarantined on site where they will be separated from loved ones just so tourists can have their envisioned dream vacation? As much as the businesses & workers need the income & return to normalcy, bubble resorts and opening the islands are not the answer. I am a mainlander who loves & travels to HI often, however travelers need to stay home.

    2. They same way to us medical staff go home to our families after every shift we work and the vast majority of us have not got covid. You will go home the same way all front line workers do.

    1. I thought so too, then I read a really well crafted article written by a doc at a hospital who had symptoms and exposure but tested negative 5 times! until her son finally tested positive (even after careful distancing) realized that it must be covid. Later after whole family recovered, she had an antibody test that confirmed indeed she did have the antibodies and did have covid. There has been a lot of talk about false positives. this article (by a doc) says that the results can depend on when you are tested – how many days after exposure/symptoms. It is all a mystery and absolutely a “crap shoot”.
      Ane T

  7. At the rate the new cases in Hawaii are growing by the time they figure this whole thing out it will be meaningless. At some point if the covid continues to multiply it will be growing at a faster rate in Hawaii than the mainland. At such time probably 3 or 4 months from now there will be so many cases that Hawaiians will be far more concerned about catching the virus from their neighbors than from tourists. I could even envision time where there could be a travel ban against Hawaiians coming to the mainland. How ironic that would be.

    1. Since HI is part of the US, there will never be a travel ban against Hawaiians coming to the mainland. Just as there is not, and has never been, a travel ban on mainland visitors. Quarantine, yes. Travel ban, no. Better we all stick to dealing with facts.

  8. Earlier, you wrote about using dogs to sniff the virus. As you mentioned, dogs can sniff drugs, contraband. They can sniff TB, diabetes, cancers, and malaria, as you mentioned. How long does it take to train the dogs and is it cost-effective? I wonder. It’s worth a try! Mahalo for all your informative posts!

    1. Hi Claudia.

      Thanks. Yes, multiple forms of on-arrival testing include sniffing dogs. We have not heard anything more about that but concur it seems worthwhile given there is dog team at HNL already.

      Aloha.

    2. This layered opening sounds complicated. No offense to Hawaii, but based on what we’ve seen so far, I have zero confidence in the Hawaiian government’s ability to administer such a plan. Talk about a potential cluster××××! Someday Hawaii is going to have to reopen. If Ige wants to wait until covid is eradicated, he has a long wait in store – like years! Just open up and require masks and social distancing like the rest of America. Those that are elderly or have underlying conditions should stay home regardless.

  9. The world really needs to take a serious look at the results in Sweden, despite no hard lockdown. Today, the epidemic is all but gone there.

    1. Where do you get that information? According to World Meter, Sweden in #29 in the world in cases per million. That’s higher than many of its neighbors such as Iceland which is #45, Denmark which is #82, and Norway which is #96.

    2. Sweden has had the 8th worst death rate per million citizens in the whole world. Higher even than the US. Not exactly a great role model for Hawaii.

    3. What many don’t know about Sweden is that they did nothing to ‘save’ the elderly in nursing homes. Many elderly Covid patients were given morphine and a sedative. Guess what happened? They suffocated. Sad, but true. Makes me cringe.

      There has to be a happy medium. I am for keeping the elderly safe – (let them stay home, away from crowds or family members who must be around ill people). Give them special shopping hours, etc.

      But allow those without serious health issues to continue to work, live and go to school. “This too shall pass.” But, unfortunately, most of us will be exposed before it does. Keeping the clamps on just prolongs our agony. I don’t even want to think of what is coming if the world’s economy doesn’t get going again very soon. Most of us have only heard of the depression. But, believe me, no one will enjoy living through another one. For one thing, people in general are not as genteel as they were back in the thirties. Instead of waiting patiently in a soup line, they will burn and destroy the cities and move on to rob and steal from anyone they can. 100 years has made a big difference and not all for the good of mankind. Take care everyone. Be kind to each other. We are gonna need it.

      1. Hi Colleen.

        Thank you for your hundreds of comments over the past 11 years! Best to you both.

        Aloha.

    4. Exactly, the same thing is happen in California and other states, it’s literally just dying out like most viruses do when they no longer have a viable host.

      1. What part of California do you live in? It’s not dying out here … we ARE starting to bend the curve down, but it’s still at a very high level. This is in great part because too much of the population just don’t want to listen and obey the health orders. If we would ALL just wear our masks, stay 6+ feet away from each other, and wash our hands, we would be in a much better place right now. Instead, we have a bunch of folks who refuse to do that AND insist on having large gatherings, etc. It’s really unfortunate that we can’t all come together and do what’s best for everyone. If we could, we would be in a much better place, and perhaps even in one where we can start opening up safely. Instead, we have business convincing people that we need to open NOW, and thus we have one of the largest outbreaks (as a percentage of population) and in the industrialized world. We can fix the economy, open up when we defeat the virus, not the other way around. BTW, as discussed above, take a look at Sweden, they are a great example of a country that tried what you’re suggesting, and even THEY are now saying it was a mistake.

    5. Why do people keep repeating the fake news about Sweden? Sweden has a horrible record: by far the highest death rate (575 per million population) in Scandinavia, even worse than the US. Sweden is most definitely not a model to follow. New Zealand, Vietnam (yep, Vietnam) and other countries that immediately followed a strict lockdown were able to open up fairly quickly with minimal problems, although both of those countries have had to back off a bit. Nevertheless, their death rates are far better than Sweden. (Vietnam: 11/m. NZ: 4/m.)

    6. Sweden has survived without any of the restrictions the rest of the world has taken… and they did so better than those who put so called protections in place.

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