Buffalo, NY (WBEN) The list of states under Governor Cuomo's travel advisory is up to 43. Pennsylvania is not on the list, but non-essential travel is discouraged.
Cuomo today announced that Arizona and Maryland have been added to New York's COVID-19 travel advisory. No areas have been removed. The advisory requires individuals who have traveled to New York from areas with significant community spread to quarantine for 14 days. The quarantine applies to any person arriving from an area with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a 7-day rolling average or an area with a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average.
Neighboring states Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania now meet the criteria for the travel advisory. "However, given the interconnected nature of the region and mode of transport between us, a quarantine on these states is not practically viable. That said, New York State highly discourages, to the extent practical, non-essential travel to and from these states while they meet the travel advisory criteria," says Cuomo.
"We are now in a situation where 43 states meet the criteria for our travel advisory. This is really a bizarre outcome, considering New York once had the highest infection rate," says Cuomo. "There is no practical way to quarantine New York from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut. There are just too many interchanges, interconnections, and people who live in one place and work in the other. It would have a disastrous effect on the economy, and remember while we're fighting this public health pandemic we're also fighting to open up the economy. However, to the extent travel between the states is not essential, it should be avoided."
The full, updated travel advisory list is available below:
Alaska
Alabama
Arkansas
Arizona
Colorado
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Guam
Iowa
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maryland
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Mississippi
Montana
North Carolina
North Dakota
Nebraska
New Mexico
Nevada
Ohio
Oklahoma
Puerto Rico
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Wisconsin
West Virginia
Wyoming
WNY's COVID positive test rate is 1.2% as of Monday.