When walking through a fog, everyone knows the smartest way forward is only as far or as fast as visibility allows.
This is the current stage of the pandemic for Hawaii, when there’s sunlight peaking through but the mist is still obscuring a clear view. There is a fine line to be walked, a balance between managing a public health crisis adequately and overstepping public authority.
The ongoing need for Safe Travels Hawaii, the year-old state program offering a limited shield from passenger-borne COVID-19 infections, is one issue that for some in the tourism industry was still unsettled.
On Tuesday, Gov. David Ige’s latest emergency proclamation under which Safe Travels operates is set to expire, and the governor already has stated his intent to renew the program.
However, some tourism industry leaders told Honolulu Star-Advertiser writer Allison Schaefers that they would like to see it sunset by year’s end. Certainly, they said, it shouldn’t outlive the pandemic and be converted to a platform for collecting tourism data or other ongoing purpose.
It does seem to be a needless inconvenience for travelers to jump through a technological hoop just because the system now exists, unless there is a clear reason to do so. It’s everyone’s hope that the public-health justification will recede at some point in the near future.
But that point is not now, or even in a few weeks. In fact, there are some in the industry who might be reconsidering their position after news broke on Friday about a new, worrying virus form.
Dubbed the omicron variant by the World Health Organization, this virus first appeared in South Africa but soon surfaced elsewhere on that continent as well as in Hong Kong, Israel and Belgium.
This is the latest Greek letter to be tagged as the name of what mutations have caused in this deadly novel coronavirus. After dealing with the ravages of the highly contagious delta variant, the world is shuddering to imagine one that could be even worse.
Indisputably, Hawaii residents surely feel thankful that its travel guardrails are in place. Now is not the time to think about taking them down — particularly when new travel restrictions are being raised internationally.
In fact, depending on how things play out with omicron, or any other surprises on the infectious- diseases front, there could even be cause to strengthen, or update, Safe Travels.
With COVID-19 continuing to surge in selected areas of the mainland and globally, immunity is waning for even those whose vaccination had earned them a quarantine waiver. At some point, policymakers must consider requiring a booster shot as well.
There could be new concerns about more virulent mutations, too, unless the global immunization project makes much better progress than has been achieved so far. The longer the virus continues infecting large populations, the greater the worry that it will have ample opportunity to replicate in more lethal forms.
Across the globe, the omicron variant is already driving nations to restrict travel in the effort to contain it. On Friday President Joe Biden announced a restriction on travel to the U.S. from South Africa and other affected countries, except for returning U.S. citizens and permanent residents who test negative.
Meanwhile, the best means of managing the continuing crisis for Hawaii is a subject for serious discussion here at home.
Before the Thanksgiving holiday, Ige outlined the various ways he would relinquish some of his control over pandemic regulation. He would no longer require mayors to clear their proposed rules through the governor’s office, to cite the most significant example.
Hawaii law currently gives the governor and mayors the power to declare a local state of emergency, which would terminate automatically 60 days after a proclamation is issued. It does not address the renewal of these proclamations, which have been issued serially since March 2020.
House Speaker Scott Saiki has said this coming session he will revisit this issue, which does merit full legislative debate. A similar debate followed the introduction of House Bill 103 this year, a measure that moved all the way to conference before being held there at session’s end.
The bill would have enabled the Legislature to approve or reject an extension of the emergency to a date certain. It’s not yet clear how such a mechanism would allow sufficient flexibility for a crisis with the extraordinary impact of a pandemic.
But that is the balance that must be achieved. The emergency orders have suspended statutes such as the crucial open meetings law. These should be fully restored as soon as public health no longer demands restricted access to public buildings.
Government policy must be shaped — and reshaped — to meet the needs of the moment. At this moment, some restrictions are still warranted, but Hawaii’s people are keeping a watchful eye out for a time when such powers can be right-sized again.
