New York|N.Y. Will Impose Quarantine on Visitors From States With Big Outbreaks
New Jersey and Connecticut will also require visitors to quarantine for two weeks. The rule reflects a stark shift in the course of the outbreak.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Wednesday that New York and two neighboring states will begin requiring certain out-of-state residents entering their states to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival.
The restrictions, which also cover New Jersey and Connecticut, will be based on specific health metrics related to the coronavirus, Mr. Cuomo said.
The move punctuated a stark shift in the course of the nation’s coronavirus outbreak; for months, the state, particularly New York City, had been a global epicenter of the pandemic. Hospitals filled to near capacity. Hundreds died each day, reaching a peak in mid-April.
Many New Yorkers with the means to do so fled, often to out-of-state locales. By late March, Florida began requiring travelers from the New York area to quarantine. Other states sought to restrict visitors. Researchers later found that by March, New York City had been seeding outbreaks around the country.
Now, the virus appears to be spreading more rapidly outside of New York than inside of the state. New infections are surging in Arizona and Texas. Nearly 20,000 people tested positive for the virus in Florida over the last five days ending Tuesday; in New York, where far more people are being tested daily, roughly 3,200 did during that period.
Only a handful of states, including Maine, Rhode Island and Hawaii, have required out-of-state travelers to quarantine. A larger number have asked travelers to quarantine but do not mandate doing so. And a few, such as Florida and Kansas, apply the requirement only to those coming from certain states.
The new quarantine requirement in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut would apply only to visitors from states where the indicators of the virus’s spread have reached specific levels.
The goal, New York officials said, is to maintain the hard fought gains against the virus that have been made, at great economic and human cost, over the past three months. On Monday, for example, nearly 49,000 people were tested for the virus in New York, and with just shy of 600 coming back positive.
