Saturday 23 May 2020

Aloha Hawaii?

I have many happy memories of Hawaii and it is good to know, that its geographical isolation and strict quarantine rules have resulted in it having one of the lowest rates of Covid-19 infection in the USA (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/23/hawaii-coronavirus-reopening-tourism). There is a problem (shared by premiere holiday locations across the globe), however, as one quarter of the economy of these islands is rooted in tourism. It is reported that lockdown is now being eased initially for things like car dealerships and pet grooming but not for more problematic activities like gyms. It is thought that the 14 day quarantine for arrivals will still be in place, at least until the end of June. One suggestion, which might help tourism to become a major player again is to allow some holiday-makers to skip quarantine. They would have to prove they were safe on the basis of a  Sars CoV-2 test. So this would be a kind of Covid-19 passport. I am unclear, at this time, whether the authorities are talking about a test for the virus or a test for antibodies to the virus (proving that the person had had the disease and recovered). There would clearly also need to be rulings on both acceptable testers (presumably not home testing kits?) and how far ahead of the proposed visit, the 'tourist' had to have the test. I suspect that people would have to book their holiday package and have the test shortly before leaving. This might be financially challenging, if you had to cancel at the last minute. I expect that surfing competitions would be especially problematic as they would involve people coming in from all over the globe.

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