Big Island reopens to interisland travelers with post-arrival test
Hawaii island is now allowing interisland travelers to test out of quarantine and is making changes to its post-arrivals testing process for trans-Pacific travelers.
Mayor Harry Kim signed an amended emergency order Tuesday that brings Hawaii island’s interisland travel requirements in line with Maui’s and Kauai’s. On Wednesday, interisland travelers to Hawaii island were allowed to avoid quarantine by taking a COVID-19 test from one of the state’s trusted travel partners no more than 72 hours before traveling to Hawaii island and presenting a negative result upon entry.
Kim’s interisland travel plan also allows interisland travelers to test out of the quarantine by taking a post-arrival antigen test paid for by the county; however, he said interisland travelers would have to quarantine until they were released by a negative result. Results from antigen tests usually take about 15 minutes.
Trans-Pacific travelers to Hawaii island won’t be allowed to test out of quarantine upon arrival.
Kim told the Star-Advertiser on Wednesday that he is making other changes to the entry protocol for transPacific travelers, who currently are required to take an antigen test upon arrival at a Hawaii island airport.
Kim said the county found that the airport wasn’t equipped for prompt testing of arriving trans-Pacific passengers and some people had to wait in long lines. The antigen test typically takes 15 minutes, but the long lines made the process take much longer. Also, he said early data collection shows that a COVID-19 test upon arrival is too soon to be effective.
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“Because of the convenience of taking the (pre-arrivals) test at the airport and other places, a lot of them were taking it just a few hours before we gave them the second test — making it counter productive,” Kim said.
Kim said only about 15 of the 4,000 or so passengers taking a post-arrivals antigen test in Hawaii island so far have tested positive and subsequent nasal swab polymerase chain reaction tests confirmed that all were false positives.
He said he’ll be working on a plan through this weekend to move the post-arrivals test from the airport to several different locations across the county and to delay administering the test until the traveler’s third or fourth day on Hawaii island.
