Displaying items by tag: travel advisory

SARATOGA SPRINGS — This week, eight states were added to the original list of eight that requires residents of those states traveling to New York to self-quarantine for 14 days upon their arrival.   

The quarantine applies to any person arriving from a state with a Covid-19 positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a 7-day rolling average or a state with a 10% or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average.

The newly added states are: California, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and Tennessee. Additionally, the travel advisory remains in effect for the initial eight states named on June 24. Those are: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North and South Carolina, Utah, Texas. 

“We’re in the middle of a national crisis and we have to be careful. We’ve made tremendous progress, but this is not over,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during his press briefing on July 1. “We’re seeing troubling signs across the country that we should be concerned about,” he said. “Our infection rate is low. How does it go up? People come in from the outside, or when we start to get lack of discipline on the inside.” 

The advisory alerting domestic travelers coming to New York occurs at a time when European nations are instituting a travel ban related to Americans traveling overseas. All members of the European Union - as well as a handful of non-E.U. nations, are slated this week to begin opening their borders to residents of more than one dozen foreign nations – Canada, Australia, and Japan among them – but not to residents of the United States, where the spread of Covid-19 has not been controlled, according to the N.Y. Times.

The rate of infection in the Capital Region remains low, although there were cautionary messages this week from the state about a COVID cluster at a Washington County/Vermont Slate Quarry. 

Washington County Department of Health subsequently announced it is working with the New York State Health Department and the Vermont Department of Health to assess the potential impacts to the community regarding reports of the cluster of COVID-19 cases. 

Cuomo said visitors to New York found to be violating the quarantine can be subject to judicial order and mandatory quarantine, in addition to being assessed fines. Those fines could be $2,000 for a first violation, $5,000 for the second violation, and up to $10,000 “if you cause harm,” the governor said.