747FC

I feel terrible about people who have legal businesses to be be faced with economic calamity.

HawaiiSailor

I think it may be unconstitutional to block a property owner from entering the state if they claim that they intend to quarantine for two weeks on their property and can prove they own/rent the property. That "loophole" could then extend to anyone legally present in the US who intends to quarantine on their "friends" property as well, as long as that can be verified. Only way around that it would seem would be to force all arrivals, including HI drivers license holders, into a guarded quarantine. There has been Supreme Court precedent on this from the dust bowl days when California tried to block refugees from Oklahoma. Although wide latitude is allowed for public health or other emergencies.

ajf87

The quarantine rules may be relaxed for some/all inter-island travel for residents, but there's no way everything goes back to normal on 6/1 for mainland visitors - daily deaths are projected to swell to over 3k since a handful of governors have decided to sacrifice their vulnerable populations.

nomad420

While I can't disagree with you and am just as in dark as everyone on this issue if things go to July like this I just don't see how a large segment of their economy will survive. I'll will probably be OK as I am working remotely but people in the hospitality industry and FBI are in trouble already.

escapefromphl

Yeah this is what I basically meant. There are a ton of vacation properties still for rent on Craigslist, I'm sure someone would be willing to be your "friend" if you wanted to rent their property for a month.

HawaiiSailor

Yeah I suspect some percentage of the "visitors" staying with "friends and family" are doing this currently. Not sure how to stop that if both parties are willing to lie about it, or are "conveniently unreachable," except temporarilly restricting access to the state to documented residents and property owners only due to a public health emergency. That would seem to be a lot for people at the airport (who are not CBP inspectors) to try to sort out on the fly though, and legally pretty dicey to be bouncing people who otherwise claim on a signed form they are going to follow the rules and can’t be trivially proven to be lying about it on the spot.

UPDATE: new article on this subject. https://www.staradvertiser.com/2020/...has-loopholes/

LIH Prem

Kind of interesting how that works, isn't it? Are they legal vacation rentals? What do you do for them?

-David

escapefromphl

They somehow think photographs will dissuade people from breaking quarantine https://www.staradvertiser.com/2020/...ne-compliance/

DELee

Data for Monday - numbers of "visitors" continue to increase (from BIVN):



David

cmtlatitudes

The numbers of residents returning daily has been almost consistently greater than the number of visitors daily, since mid-March. Not every day, but most days. And yet there's little discussion of impounding a resident's car for 14 days when they return to quarantine, bolting their doors shut, or requiring ankle bracelets to monitor their movements. There's no discussion of enforcing stay at home requirements to prevent Hawaii residents from taking their vacations to visit family on the mainland and potentially return with the virus. A returning resident may have full run of their nice house and yard and car and no particular specifics monitoring or restrictions other than their word they will self quarantine.

I do understand Hawaii's unique position and am not being a "hater" or insensitive to that. But I think it's the wild imbalance and vitriol that 's coming from so many Hawaii travel forums --- not necessarily Flyertalk which IMO actually deserves applaud for being much more civil and balanced than most others --- but other forums that are feeding into some of the reactions folks are having now about visiting Hawaii.

On these forums, every visitor is lumped into a category of "you will come here, disrespect our rules, and spread the virus". Which is just as absurd as the notion that a family from Hawaii that goes off to Oregon for two weeks and is arranging picnic table wine dates with all their mainland friends, along with two excursions through airport to get there, is not going to stop at the grocery store or run other essential errands during their 14 day quarantine when they return from Hawaii. And even if they do, what about possibly infecting Hawaii residents at HNL on their return? (Real life example. Another HA travel forum someone actually talking about this in a post - their current Oregon trip that is underway. Not one --- not one negative comment from any Hawaii resident poster about this on that forum. But yet someone from Nebraska asks about a mid August vacation to Hawaii, and if the poor poster pushes back at all against the immediate "don't come yet " sentiments, the wrath of a hundred hellhounds promptly descends upon their heads.)

Yes, I'm probably exaggerating a little. But not a lot. The message and tone coming out of those forums has been so one sided negative to visitors, it's understandable folks would start to feel like, why the heck should I bother with Hawaii and spending my hard earned vacation money there, even when they do reopen? Other US territories have border restrictions and states have 14 day quarantines but the overall tones on those forums seems much different than the Hawaii forums. More empathetic to folks who have to cancel trips, helpful suggestions on places to quarantine & have food & supplies stocked and delivered, etc., if you must travel. A much more inclusive tone, of all US citizens being in this together, regardless where you're from.

HawaiiSailor

It’s all about risk reduction. A resident returning to their home community where the virus has been effectively eliminated (already nearly the case on some of the islands) is likely to be more careful about becoming patient zero-prime of a resurgence, and more willing and able to reduce risk by mostly staying home. Because they care deeply about their extended ohana, and because it may relatively obvious in small communities to figure out who reintroduced the virus after a mainland trip.

nomad420

In reading this as a returning resident I would still have to self quarantine for 2 weeks (which is what I have been doing in CA for 2 months). I am still unclear about making essential trips for food, some have said even this is not "allowed". Can I go out an exercise? Would walking (by myself) on my local beach be a violation? I am still unclear and don't really want to fly back to a bureaucratic mess when I land. If I am basically imprisoned in my own home I'll stay put in CA until the quarantine is lifted.

HawaiiSailor

Yes you’d need to stay at home except for urgent medical care, tsunami evacuation, or to go back to the airport to leave again. Is that enforced? Not really. Are people actually doing that, or just “being careful?” Who knows. Does “home” include common spaces at a condo complex that you own an interest in? Unclear. Do returning residents seem to be major vectors of current contagion? Not that we’ve heard about. Why not? Because they’re being careful. Why? Because they deeply care about their ohana, community, and their geographically isolated and resource-limited state in a deep and compelling way.

cmtlatitudes

Nomad, I'm sure you'll be fine, regardless if you break strict quarantine protocols. And I'm not saying that in a mean or snarky way. I don't blame you a bit for not wanting to go back and deal with that. I don't think you would be subjected to that though.

It's clear there is a double standard, even from the replies to my comments. There is the Ohana deeply caring Hawaii residents who can travel across the US, come back to Hawaii, and surely take every conceivable precaution to not get the virus or infect anyone on their return, and selfish Mainland tourists travelers that will surely bring the virus with them to Hawaii and not care enough to respect Hawaii's quarantine requirements.

Of course there are some of those least common denominator tourists from the Mainland who will break the quarantine requirements. And I think they should be fined, put in jail, or sent back to the mainland if they break quarantine. But it's not everyone from the Mainland. Just like whoever was responsible for the spate of rental car tire slashing against tourists in Hawaii, and made threats to take matters into their own hands against visitors before quarantine regulations were even put in place, are clearly not representative of everyone in Hawaii.

The root of the growing inclination some of us have to take our travel $$ someplace else is not primarily because of Hawaii's quarantine requirements. I'm not certain Hawaii residents can understand or relate to the feelings travelers are starting to have because of current sentiments on other HA travel forums, as no one is treating them that way. Because mainlanders are not on public travel forums spreading hate and hostility and vitriol against Hawaii residents, for no other reason than god-forbid someone from Maui still wants to come to the mainland for their summer trip with the family to the Grand Canyon in July. And Hawaii residents obviously aren't being subjected to the same character attacks by other Hawaii residents when they return to Hawaii from the states, as those visitors coming to the islands are. Posters from the mainland aren't lumping Hawaii residents into a group and attacking them. Posters from the mainland aren't responding gleefully when someone from Hawaii loses a deposit for a trip to Maine because a bad apple VRBO owner won't return it. It's a very different thing how some mainlanders are starting to feel from some of these sentiments on these other forums. It's not about the quarantine. The sentiments on those forums - mainstream ones everybody knows - have been very different the past two months than the mostly rational and reasonable give and take discussions on Flyertalk forums. (and I do humbly thank everyone here for those!)

747FC

I don't think there is any uncertainty about what home quarantine means: It means one's home, not the common spaces of a condo. If you look at past reports, tourists have been instructed that they cannot use the common-area facilities of hotels. They must stay in their rooms. No outdoor exercise. Nothing but confinement in one's individual home.