Time has a funny way of sneaking up on us: 30 years might seem a long time away, but sooner than expected, it’ll be 2050 — and up to 40% of Hawaii’s beaches would be gone.

That’s the dire prediction, if nothing starts changing to protect Hawaii’s sandy beaches, as outlined in a new study by researchers of the Coastal Geology Group at the University of Hawaii-Manoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. Authors of the study (see 808ne.ws/2G3hydg), published in the journal Scientific Reports, warn that now is the time to enact policies to stop piecemeal permitting of sea walls — which accelerate erosion of neighboring shorelines — and instead, to help beachfront owners transition out of their doomed locations to save our sandy beaches.

Pretesting deal doesn’t include keiki

So many details still need to be worked out about Hawaii’s pretravel testing process that replaces the 14-day quarantine, ahead of the Oct. 15 trans-Pacific reopening.

Among them: That the state’s pacts with pretesting entities CVS Pharmacy and Kaiser Permanente, where COVID-19 pretesting can be done, don’t allow for testing of minors under age 12. So while mom and dad could get pretested and cleared 72 hours before Hawaii arrival, the keiki will have to be pretested and cleared via other means — or spend 14 days here in quarantine.