New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is doing away with his policy of requiring travelers from COVID hotspots to quarantine, and will now instead be asking them to get tested for the virus before entering the state, CNBC reports.
They’ll also have to get tested again within days of entering New York.
CNBC reports that Cuomo’s previous rule applied to people traveling from any state that has had positive testing rates of more than 10 per 10,000 residents over a seven-day rolling average. That means any state with a positivity rate of 10 percent or more for over a week.
On Tuesday, there were 41 states that met the criteria for the original quarantine advisory. The new testing rule applies to all states except those contiguous with New York.
Cuomo spoke last week about the new rises in COVID infections, which have seen several “red zones” in the state with especially high positivity rates in recent weeks.
And Cuomo said the spikes had turned up even in neighboring states like Connecticut and New Jersey, which had previously gotten their rates down to manageable levels, CNBC wrote.
Cuomo has advised residents not to travel outside the state for the holidays if they can, due to the risk of continuing to spread the virus. He said those who do have to travel should quarantine and get tested as soon as possible. With a second wave highly possible, Cuomo said those who traveled could very well be putting friends and family at a risk of infection.
The U.S. recently hit new high rates of infections, with 99,321 new cases on Friday (Oct. 30), which made the seven-day average a new record of 78,738. The start of flu season, and the prospect of hospitals filling up even more from the combination of coronavirus patients and flu cases, have health officials worried about the state of things going forward.
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