Quarantine has had a bad rap. It is unpleasant for locals subjected to it upon return to the state. It is a disincentive to potential visitors to Hawaii, leading to a decline of the tourism sector of the economy. But eliminating quarantine before we have a safe replacement for it will solve no problem.

Until and unless we can implement properly-designed testing protocols, quarantine will continue to provide an overall benefit. Quarantine will enable the local economy to flourish, and it will enable school children to return to their schools.

The example of Kauai is instructive. A relatively successful quarantine system established on Kauai in the months since the outbreak of the pandemic has recently avoided the injection and spread of the virus into the community. The two individuals who most recently were the only active cases on the island had traveled from the mainland before their infections produced symptoms, and before the best testing available would have shown that they were incubating COVID-19.

Upon arrival on Kauai, both people respected the required quarantine. Had they arrived after the proposed “opening” of Oct. 15, when a 72-hour pre-test would have been all that was required of them to allow them to avoid quarantine, they would each have arrived with a false negative test result and been released into the community to spread a disease that neither had any reason to know he was carrying.

Kauai is our closest lesson, but we can also benefit from the experience of states and countries that have opened to visitors using only a single 72-hour pre-flight test. None has succeeded in avoiding what Hawaii, too, will not avoid: the injection of the virus into the local population, and its entrenchment and spread.

Only one element stands in the way of the safe and responsible opening of the state to tourism: a rash, premature and unnecessary rush to drop the quarantine in order to entice visitors to return to Hawaii. This plan is touted as the only solution to our economic problems. Not only is it not the only solution, but the opposite is true.

It will be a disaster to the economy, and those who will suffer the most are the very people who have suffered the most thus far. The hotel and restaurant personnel, and others who serve visitors on a daily basis will carry disease to their families and neighborhoods, while executives of corporations who profit from the work of those on the frontlines will sit safely at home and orchestrate the process remotely.

It was only a few weeks ago that Gov. David Ige correctly resisted the push to reopen more quickly, accepting the advice of economists that the economy will not recover until the health of the state recovers. That fact remains true, and it is therefore inexplicable why his conclusion that derived from it has changed.

There is still time for the state to retract that unfortunate decision, avoid worsening an already bad situation, get its testing plans in proper order, and only then open successfully.

Phyllis Albert, of Koloa, Kauai, is a Ph.D. in intellectual history who has taught in universities on the mainland and in France, Australia and Jerusalem.