More like the A-no-ha State.
Amid a surge in cases of COVID-19’s Delta variant, Hawaii Gov. David Ige is warning tourists to stay away from the Aloha State — and is even considering imposing a statewide lockdown.
“It is not a good time to travel to the islands,” Ige said at a news conference on Monday, adding that everyone should “restrict and curtail travel to Hawaii” until after October, Hawaii News Now reported.
Ige explained that he’s even urged tour operators and airlines to inform would-be travelers that Hawaii is “not ready for them,” according to Honolulu Civil Beat.
The head Hawaii honcho cited the exponential spike in cases over the last “10 weeks,” which has overwhelmed the island’s hospitals with ICU units at near-capacity. Meanwhile, the department of health reported a staggering 9,389 new cases in the Aloha State in the past 14 days, including 1,649 on the Big Island, West Hawaii Today reported.
And while Ige stopped short of announcing any travel restrictions, he said that a quarantine “is on the table” if the number of cases continue to surge. However, he didn’t specify what infection threshold would prompt a stay-at-home order.
“We are in contact with the hospitals every single day about their current situation of the number of patients they are seeing and about their capacity to continue to serve our community,” he said.
Ige acknowledged that he was aware the measure could impact businesses that have only just begun to recover from the last lockdown.
“Certainly our call to reduce travel to the islands to only essential business will have an impact on the numbers that come here,” he said. “As a community that’s a risk we have to take.”
Currently, Hawaii requires visitors to present proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test to avoid a 10-day quarantine — a measure that opportunistic bozos have tried to circumvent with fake vaccine passports.
