{"id":350538,"date":"2021-08-25T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T20:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=350538"},"modified":"2021-08-25T06:00:09","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T20:00:09","slug":"governor-now-is-not-a-good-time-to-travel-to-hawaii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/governor-now-is-not-a-good-time-to-travel-to-hawaii\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor: Now is not a good time to travel to Hawaii"},"content":{"rendered":"

HONOLULU (AP)\u2014Hawaii\u2019s governor asked Monday that visitors and residents reduce travel to the islands to essential business only while the state struggles to control COVID-19 as the highly contagious delta variant spreads in the community.<\/p>\n

Gov. David Ige wants to curtail travel to Hawaii through the end of October.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a risky time to be traveling right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said restaurant capacity has been restricted and there\u2019s limited access to rental cars.<\/p>\n

Ige stopped short of a mandate, saying it\u2019s a different time now than last year when strict travel rules that required quarantining essentially shut down Hawaii\u2019s tourism industry.<\/p>\n

\"David
David Ige<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cLast year in March, when I first asked for visitors to postpone travel to the islands, we saw a 60% reduction in the traffic to Hawaii\u201d Ige said. \u201cAnd then certainly, ordering the mandatory quarantine of all incoming visitors reduced travel to the islands by 99.5%, essentially 100% of travelers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Things are different now with vaccines available and guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying fully vaccinated people can travel domestically.<\/p>\n

Ige said he supports Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi\u2019s announcement to restrict indoor gatherings to 10 people and outdoor gatherings to 25.<\/p>\n

Blangiardi said the rules taking effect Wednesday would apply to weddings and other events.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also urging people to get vaccinated.<\/p>\n

Hiro Toiya, the city\u2019s emergency management director, cited a mathematical modeling tool from the Georgia Institute of Technology to illustrate risks the community faced from large gatherings.<\/p>\n

The modeling shows there is a 20% chance that someone in a group of 10 will have the disease given the number of COVID-19 cases on Oahu now. But in a group of 100, there\u2019s a 90% chance someone will have it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when you\u2019re looking at how transmissible delta is, we really got to control these large gatherings,\u201d Toiya said at a news conference. \u201cThe status quo is not working, and it\u2019s not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Multiple Oahu hospitals have filled their regular beds as COVID-19 cases pour into emergency rooms. The city set up a 25-cot tent outside The Queen\u2019s Medical Center – West Oahu on Friday to help handle the influx.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HONOLULU (AP)\u2014Hawaii\u2019s governor asked Monday that visitors and residents reduce travel to the islands to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":350528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[122],"class_list":["post-350538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}