Posted on 08/24/2021 11:03:58 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Hawaii Governor David Ige encouraged potential tourists not to visit the islands amid a surge of coronavirus cases, saying it is "a risky time to be traveling right now."
"I encourage everyone to restrict and curtail travel to Hawaii," Ige said during a press conference on Monday. "It's not a good time to travel to the islands."
Ige said that travel should be limited to "essential business activities only." Visitors, he said, will not have the "typical" vacation that they would expect, as restaurant capacity has been restricted and rental vehicles are limited.
Ige's warning comes as Hawaii continues to see a rise in COVID cases and hospitals have reached capacity. There have been more than 9,300 new cases in the past two weeks, according to the state's health department. The majority of new cases have been in Oahu, one of the most popular Hawaiian destinations for travelers.
"We are seeing more COVID patients in our hospitals and the ICUs are filling up," Ige said on Monday. "We know that we need to take action now in order to reduce the spread of COVID and ensure that our hospitals are not overrun."
Dr. Elizabeth Char, director of the state's health department, said in a statement that the COVID surge is mostly stemming from community spread and people flying to hotspot areas and "bringing COVID back."
"If things do not change, our health care systems will be crippled," Char said, "and those needing medical care for all types of diseases, injuries and conditions, including our visitors, may find it difficult to get the treatment they need right away."
Char said that COVID cases have gone up "for the past 10 Mondays."
Hawaii Tourism Authority President and CEO John De Fries said that the number of visitors is starting to decline, which is typical as autumn approaches.
"Our community, residents and the visitor industry, are responsible for working together to address this crisis," De Fries said in a statement. "As such, we are strongly advising visitors that now is not the right time to travel, and they should postpone their trips through the end of October."
Ige also reiterated the importance of proper hygiene, wearing masks, social distancing and getting vaccinated to prevent the spread of COVID-19, as well as the importance of testing to be able to track the spread.
"We know that the vaccines are effective at preventing death and severe illness, including hospitalizations," Ige said, emphasizing that the Pfizer vaccine received full FDA approval just hours before his press conference.
Sixty-two percent of Hawaii citizens have been fully vaccinated, according to the state.
OK...good for him...still going to Kauai for Christmas and New Years...
Can’t make myself care.
Hawaii has never been on my bucket list anyway. Being that far from land would trigger my claustrophobia.
What they don’t tell you is that hospitals by design are meant to run at near capacity. Having dozens of empty beds means lost revenue and too much empty space. Therefore even a small uptick in admissions will tax many hospitals.
Visiting family in Oahu this week. Leaving tomorrow and I can’t wait. Mandatory masks indoors. Restaurants running at 50% occupancy caps with some far lower due to staffing shortages. Hawaii is screwed up right now and they are shutting down tourism again!
I thought they were really good about wearing masks there.
Don’t they work?
Credit where due, he’s being responsible about this one.
Well that’s too bad. If the poor overburdened Doctors were infusing patients that are at high risk to crash with Regeneron (which has been available for months now), they would have a small fraction of patients that ended up needing major intervention.
But, they only get $300 for the infusion (drug is free); and probably $100K or far more for putting someone on a vent for a week or two...before they die. Decisions, decisions.
I live in Honolulu and it’s a total lie!!!! I don’t know one person who knows one person who is sick. The hospitals are lying, they associate one nurse per bed and claim to over-run, it’s not. I’m not vaccinated and everyone knows it’s bs but just don’t want to say out loud. Walmart owns Hawaii now.
And you know what the tourists say?
It’s kind of hard to cancel if you have booked and paid for everything months in advance .
They have a point.
Ige is famous for his edicts, Ige’s Edicts . He thinks them up and leaves it for others to execute . The man is a pissant .
Do you know of URLs that cover Hawaiian covid cases and hospitcal occupancy?
I went there for a week long vacation, back in 1989, and it triggered mine. I didn’t mind getting back on that aircraft, and leaving. I never went back again.
THIS IS ASTOUNDING. You can’t get to Hawaii unless you are vaccinated or provide a negative Covid test. This is literally a surge of the Vaccinated!
One of, if not the most, vaccinated states in the union.
No mention of relative metrics... capacities/numbers at the “unnamed” hospitals. They always leave out, you know, facts, especially those that could be independently verified.
This constant barrage of feardom is getting (yawn) tiring.
Hawaii’s CoupFlu dashboard says the gov lies like a rug.
Some people love a place so much they almost literally ache to be there. Hawaii is that place for me and I loved the years we lived there.
I, too, have claustrophobia, but the isolation never bothered me - until one day we were threatened with a possible taunami on the island. It never happened, though.
Our friends go next week, and wanted to cancel. They learned that they’re loose $6000 of they cancel, so they’re going.
Yep, most all travelers face this
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