Hawaii’s Governor Ige has been formally asked to reinstate the Safe Travels pre-travel testing program for all travelers from the US mainland. The request came from Hawaii Island’s mayor, Mitch Roth.
If approved, and we suspect it may well be, it will apply to all passengers, whether visitors or residents and without regard to being fully vaccinated or not. Currently, however, travelers fully vaccinated in the US are permitted to bypass both quarantine and pre-travel testing on arrival in Hawaii.
Roth noted in the request that with the recent uptick in Covid on the Big Island, its hospitals are already at capacity as of yesterday. His request was posted to Facebook. It comes at the same time as the two largest hospitals on Oahu both reported that they had exceeded ICU capacity, and the number of new cases reported by the state today is over 750.
1. Keep in mind that this request has not yet been approved by the governor.
2. If it is approved, watch for either statewide or county-by-county approval.
The way the Safe Travels “pre-travel testing program” works. It will be mandatory if reinstated.
1. Test within 72 hours of a scheduled transpacific flight’s departure from the mainland to Hawaii. Tests are required to be from one of Hawaii’s approved testing partners only. Any costs associated with the tests are the responsibility of travelers. The price ranges from free to $250 per person. See the link above for approved testing providers.
2. Hawaii requires that the test be a NAAT/PCR only, and nothing else is acceptable. Also, the test must be one of Hawaii’s trusted partners, not any lab, even if it is the correct test. The specific language in effect is as follows:
“The state of Hawai‘i will ONLY accept Nucleic Acid Amplification Test (NAAT) from a certified Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment (CLIA) lab test results from TRUSTED TESTING AND TRAVEL PARTNERS. A negative COVID-19 test result is required before departure to avoid quarantine in Hawaii.”
3. The minimum age for testing children is 5 years. All travelers 5 and above must have a COVID-19 test and negative results through one of the state’s trusted testing partners. Note that some trusted testing partners test all ages, and others do not.
4. Those who are in compliance with Safe Travels should attempt to obtain compliance wristbands from their airline at their mainland departure gateway to Hawaii. The airlines offering that service including American, Alaska, Hawaiian, Southwest, and United.
BOH: We have been saying for weeks that we expect Hawaii to reinstate pre-travel testing, at least until the number of Covid cases and hospitalizations drops significantly. We also believe that Hawaii should move to some form of supervised quarantine, rather than self-quarantine, for those who choose not to comply with testing.
We always welcome your thoughts.
Instead of asking vaccinated tourists who are not clogging up hospitals with COVID infections; has Ige considered mandating vaccines for Hawaiian residents?
The root cause of the strain on Hawaii hospitals is unvaccinated locals. The tourists are not preventing locals to get vaccinated.
Hello,
This report is dated the 19th, is there an updated report on whether
the COVID testing requirements have been reinstated even for Vaccinated
individuals.
Thank you
Dear BOH readers, I have a general question for everyone. Who has used AFC urgent care for their test & how fast did you get the results back? I look forward to hearing the responses. Malaho & stay safe everyone! God bless you…..psalms 91:11 😍😇🌈
Any update if vaccinated people will need a negative Covid test? If not, does anyone have any idea when an update might be made? Thank you in advance.
Hi Kathleen.
There is no further update at this time.
Aloha.
Please BOH, let readers comment about the Hawaii travel experience without canceling different views. Just happened 90 sec. ago. Kirk
Dear BOH Bros, Waiting to come to the Beautiful Hawaiian Island of Oahu is another way that I can stay safe while keeping other people safe as well. We all should be doing things to keep others safe because everyone is in this virus situation together. I’ve been waiting all my life to go to Hawaii so what is alittle more time?! God bless you!! 😍😇
Seems to me to be a waste of money and resources to test the vaccinated. Test the unvaccinated, they are the ones who created this new mess in the first place.
Not true! I have 6 family members who have been vaccinated and now are sick and have tested positive for COVID-19.
When I was in Kauai in July, the positive cases in the entire state just hit triple digits. Guess what? As of July 8th, vaccinated travelers no longer needed to pretest before flying. Now look at the numbers. They are over 600+ per day. Get your head out of the sand and wake up! This is not a problem with just unvaccinated people. I think the vaccine has been eating up you brain cells!
Exactly! Propaganda is trying to make it look like the unvaccinated are the ones testing positive and the ones in the hospital which I find hard to believe! I had to test negative before flying to hawaii, and the vaccinated who sat on the plane right next to me did not have to test, so there way no way to know if they had covid?! I only hear of vaccinated people catching covid these days. The vaccinated people are not testing and traveling all over. I believe it is the vaccinated who are ending up in the hospital based on the stories I keep hearing if vaccinated in the hospital. This is just getting ridiculous already. 80% of people who are hospitalized with covid are obese, how about we test for obesity instead? This should really be called an obesity pandemic.
Curious where you’re getting your information on so many vaccinated people getting covid and being hospitalized, as that’s not true. Yes, vaccinated people are getting the virus, but most in the hospitals for it are indeed the unvaccinated. On Aug 19th, only 37 of the 355 hospitalized in Hawaii were vaccinated, and that included both partial and fully vaccinated. That information came from our Lt. Governor if you want to find out yourself too confirm.
Could not agree with you more. The vaccines are showing so many problems and the information is being canceled. The longevity, the spreading post jab, etc. So sad to never see the whole truth in #’s. Kirk
Alas, so many people can only see binary, black and white. Where the world is full of gray. Covid Vaccination does not guarantee against re-infection. No vaccinations are 100% effective, It does however reduce the risk dramatically. Similarly there will be people who et very sick get hospitalized or even die after vaccination but the risk is greatly reduced and statistically loaded to those with pre existing health conditions.
So, vaccination will not guarantee no reinfection, neither will mask wearing in public, nor will social distancing nor will increasing personal cleaning routine or avoiding unnecessary exposure to packed indoor venues with limited ventilation. However if you are vaccinated and you follow the guidelines, your risk is minimal.
Saying I am not going to be vaccinated because it does not infection is like saying I am not going to travel or drive by car as there is a risk of crashes, except the risk with vaccines is lower.
It makes good sense to bring back pre flight testing and also to close indoor bars. The pre test weeds out a number and makes people think twice about risking flying whiskey infected and closing bars reduces transmission as anyone who has been to a Hawaii hostelry will no as people’s common sense evaporates with alcohol. Bar Owners should be allowed to offer open air drinking to reduce the risk, where it is possible.