Meanwhile, tourism, while on the rise, is still far below its pre-pandemic levels. In April, 7% of the known COVID-19 cases statewide were travel-related, and many of those were due to returning residents. They don’t care if people are at work or there are enough visitors generating revenues.” “But there’s a very vocal minority that will just hang onto the safety issue, and to them this sounds good. Visitors have never been the ones causing spikes the problem was community-based,” Vieira said. “It’s government overkill because it gets votes. Hawaii’s lack of urgency in amending Safe Travels to allow vaccinated travelers to bypass quarantines without testing is “illogical and ultimately will hurt recovery,” said Keith Vieira, principal of KV & Associates, Hospitality Consulting. Now with increasing numbers of Americans being vaccinated and COVID-19 cases on the decline, many are questioning why Hawaii still requires a costly and inconvenient COVID-19 test of any trans-Pacific traveler wanting to avoid an otherwise mandatory 10-day quarantine. In the beginning it provided a pathway for the state to start opening up tourism, which plummeted more than 90% at the height of the pandemic. The Safe Travels program, which confirms visitors have had a negative COVID-19 test before arriving, launched Oct. Hawaii is currently the only state still requiring testing for travelers who have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19. destinations have dropped nearly all of their travel restrictions. The state is spending about $38 million to fund one year of its Safe Travels airport screening program and is making plans to spend another $22 million on top of that even though most U.S.
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