Plane at JFK Airport (Adam Moreira/ CC BY-SA/ Wikimedia Commons)
June 24, 2020 By Allie Griffin
Travelers from states with a high rate of COVID-19 infection must quarantine for 14 days upon entering New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced today.
Cuomo made the announcement with the governors of New Jersey and Connecticut via video in a joint press conference Wednesday.
“We are announcing today a joint travel advisory,” Cuomo said. “People coming in from states that have a high infection rate must quarantine for 14 days.”
The advisory applies to visitors from such states — as well as returning residents — to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
States with an infection rate greater than 10 cases per 100,000 residents or a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a seven-day rolling average are subject to the travel advisory and two-week quarantine.
The states that are currently above that level include Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Utah and Texas, Cuomo said.
New York will update which states meet the metrics for the quarantine advisory daily.
“We worked very hard to get the viral transmission rate down,” the governor said. “We don’t want to see it go up because a lot of people come into this region and they could literally bring the infection with them.”
Cuomo said if someone from one of the states seeing an uptick in cases is found to be breaking the quarantine in New York, he or she could be subject to a judicial order and mandatory quarantine or even fines up to $2,000 for the first offense.
The advisory takes effect tonight at midnight.
