Most states are now on New York’s quarantine list as coronavirus cases rise

by Joseph Guzman | Oct. 20, 2020 | Oct. 20, 2020

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“We are now in a situation where 43 states meet the criteria for our travel advisory. This is really a bizarre outcome, considering New York once had the highest infection rate,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said in a statement Tuesday.
Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New Jersey also meet the criteria to be added to the advisory, but Cuomo said a quarantine requirement for the states is not viable.
New York added Maryland and Arizona to the list Tuesday.

Travelers from most states in the U.S. are now required to quarantine when arriving in New York state as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in many parts of the country in what many experts fear is the start of a fall surge.

The quarantine advisory mandates people who have traveled to New York from areas with significant community spread of the coronavirus quarantine for 14 days. The quarantine applies to travelers from areas that either have at least a 10 percent positive rate or more than 10 new cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day rolling average.

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More than 40 states and territories now fall in that category.

“We are now in a situation where 43 states meet the criteria for our travel advisory. This is really a bizarre outcome, considering New York once had the highest infection rate,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said in a statement Tuesday.

New York added Maryland and Arizona to the list Tuesday.

Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New Jersey also meet the criteria to be added to the advisory, but Cuomo said a quarantine requirement for the states is not viable given their close proximity.

“There is no practical way to quarantine New York from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut. There are just too many interchanges, interconnections, and people who live in one place and work in the other. It would have a disastrous effect on the economy, and remember while we’re fighting this public health pandemic we’re also fighting to open up the economy,” Cuomo said.

The governor said travel that is not essential, however, should be avoided.

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in June were the first to roll out the joint travel advisory requiring travelers visiting from coronavirus hot spots to quarantine.

Over the summer, more than 30 states and territories made the list.

This comes as more than half of U.S. states are reporting a rise in new infections and the nation’s seven-day average of new daily cases was above more than 58,000 as of Monday, a level not seen since the first week of August.

New York has currently faced its own cluster problems over recent weeks but the state’s overall infection rate remains low.

The full travel advisory list is available below: