cmtlatitudes

Quarantine light, similar to the mainland. Hawaii residents can fly stateside, vacation and visit family wherever they like, fly back, and quarantine in their own homes in Hawaii. Their car is not confiscated. They are not bolted inside their home from the outside. The other members in their household are not subject to quarantine restrictions when the traveler returns.

Night and day difference with what travelers from the mainland have to comply with. Hawaii is requiring US citizens from the mainland to quarantine for 14 days in a hotel room from an approved accommodation list of hotels, with a one-way, one-use access card. If you leave the room, you can't get back in. When you request to get back in, the hotel calls the police to report you've violated quarantine. Can't leave your room, outside food delivery only to your door, no access to amenities, literally cannot leave your room for two weeks, if the hotel cooperates with the state's requested one time access policy. If you have a balcony or lanai, you can sit on it. Well, maybe. There's been reports of certain hotels having problems with that also. US travelers from the mainland are prohibited from staying in a VRBO to quarantine and prohibited from renting a car until quarantine is completed.

I'm not advocating anyone break quarantine. Of course not. But supposedly quarantine is based on a reasonable belief you've possibly come into contact with the virus. OK. So Hawaii residents are allowed to leave, go to any Covid infested city they like, stay at the Grand Canyon, whatever - and come home to their household with no restrictions. They have to call every day and are subject to a possible home visit. They retain their car keys. They aren't locked in their houses. They can enjoy their yards. For all practical purposes, they can de facto go and do pretty much anything "essential", just as in the mainland, and aren't going to bothered. Their spouses and kids can come and go as much as they'd like, even though theoretically they are potentially just as exposed and infected as a traveler from the mainland.

What possible scientific or medical rational is there for this inequity in civil and constitutional rights? A resident back FROM a non-essential trip to the mainland gets, well, basically nothing, except mostly camping out at their house for two weeks and keeping a low profile if they leave, and US citizen traveling to Hawaii - also FROM the mainland - gets a one room hotel room jail cell. How can they even pretend this is even about containing the virus?

The inequity is particularly galling since these new reports of Hawaii trying to broker deals to admit "desirable" tourists from Japan, New Zealand, and Australia, and not require quarantine. While thousands of US families are in limbo about their pwn planned vacations, yet to receive refunds, etc.

Look, I don't want people from Hawaii to be subject to staying in a government mandated accommodation when they return. I don't want them to suffer through that. What would be nice however is if the Hawaii state government were not stirring up and feeding off the general contempt the Hawaii populace already seems to have for mainland tourists, to make it seem like they're doing something. And because it's an easy target the populace will accept.