Buffalo, NY (WBEN) - DUring what would normally be a busy summer travel season, travel to and from New York State just got a little bit more difficult.
Again.
Governor Andrew Cuomo says three additional states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. meet the metrics to qualify for the travel advisory requiring individuals who have traveled to New York from those areas, all of which have significant community spread, to quarantine for 14 days. The newly-added states are Illinois, Kentucky and Minnesota.
While the quarantine rules are in effect, there are exceptions for essential state workers and for those whose travels are less than 24 hours. That leads to the question, why?
"I think the rationale of the governor is certainly if someone is in one of these hot spot states, the purpose of the 14 day quarantine is to try to minimize a flareup of cases here in New York," says Dr. Tom Russo of UB.
As far as the 24 hour exception, "I think the 24 hour rule has a bit of pragmatism to it in terms of people who are coming to airports and transferring, or people delivering essential goods to hot spot states, drop them off and leave right away," believes Russo. "As part of his executive order, people who come in need to practice the public health measures to reduce risk."
The advisory includes states if their seven-day rolling average of positive tests exceeds 10%, or if the number of positive cases exceeds 10 per 100,000 residents. The list has included Texas, California and Florida for weeks.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has expressed worry for weeks that infection rates in hard-hit New York could once again rise because of travel from high-risk states.
New York hospitals saw over 18,000 patients with COVID-19 at a time in mid-April when infections surged and more than 750 COVID-19 patients died each day in hospitals and nursing homes.
Those figures plunged in May, and rates of hospitalizations and new positive COVID-19 cases have been relatively stable since June.
Cuomo said 0.93% of 57,000 tests conducted Monday were positive, and nursing homes and hospitals reported nine people with COVID-19 died.
State lawmakers are holding hearings about the impact of COVID-19 on New York, with Tuesday's hearing focusing on higher education. Cuomo faces decisions on legislation addressing the pandemic passed by the state Senate and Assembly last week, including bills that address the expected surge in mail-in voting this fall by ensuring certain absentee ballots without a postmark are accepted and making it easier for voters to request absentee ballots earlier and fix deficient ballots.
The governor has said he's concerned about reports of people failing to wear masks or stay 6 feet (2 meters) apart in populous New York City and Long Island.
The state has suspended the liquor licenses of an additional dozen, mostly Latin restaurants in several Queens neighborhoods — including Jackson Heights and Corona, both at the epicenter of the pandemic in New York City — as a result of Cuomo's amped up enforcement.
Since late March, the Cuomo administration has suspended the liquor licenses of 45 businesses — with 25 in Queens or the Bronx.
“New Yorkers have worked hard to flatten the curve, but the bars and restaurants that ignore public health guidance are disrespecting their sacrifices which have saved lives while allowing us to sustain the reopening of our economy,” Cuomo said.