An official tasked with overseeing the arrival of passengers at Hawaii’s airports was raked over the coals Thursday by members of the state Senate’s Special Committee on COVID-19.
State Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, an Oahu Democrat, told Department of Transportation Airports Division Deputy Director Ross Higashi he doesn’t believe information provided by arriving mainland passengers is being verified well enough to ensure compliance with the 14-day self-quarantine imposed on visitors by Gov. David Ige.
Dela Cruz said he wants to see for himself the procedures used to procure and verify information from arriving passengers and said the committee will visit the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu today at 11:30 a.m.
Dela Cruz said he chose the time because he’s been informed the majority of visitors still arriving do so between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.
According to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, there were 590 people who arrived at Hawaii’s airports from out of state on Wednesday. That included 187 visitors, 220 returning residents, 64 intended residents, 99 airline crew members and 20 people who are in transit to another destination and who aren’t leaving the airport. More than 4,200 visitors have arrived in Hawaii since the quarantine order went into effect March 26.
Dela Cruz noted several well-publicized cases of individuals arrested for breaking the visitor quarantine order, which is considered a misdemeanor offense punishable by up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine. He said that with the focus turning to reopening the state for business, including the visitor industry, the current system of information collection and verification of arriving passengers is inadequate.
“I know the administration likes to say, ‘Hey, they got caught. The thing is working; they got caught,’” Dela Cruz said. “But that’s not going to work when you’ve got 5,000 people, 10,000 people, 30,000 people flying in.
“What I still can’t gather is, why are people still leaving the airport when their information isn’t accurately verified?”
Replied Higashi, “I don’t have an answer for that, because we’re still verifying all their information at the gate when they’re arriving.”
Another Oahu Democrat, Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, asked Higashi if screeners at the airport are calling non-hotel destinations to verify if the visitor is expected, and Higashi answered negative.
“Can you tell if it’s a (bed and breakfast) or short-rental from the tax map key?” Kim asked.
“No, we cannot,” Higashi replied.
“We’re getting emails saying, like, this woman moved to the Big Island, hop-scotching three illegal vacation rentals while looking for a place to live, and so they’re violating the 14-day (quarantine),” Kim said.
“It’s not a foolproof process as long as it’s a self-quarantine system,” Higashi noted.
“Ross, I understand that people are going to cheat, and they’re going to go out of their way to maybe have somebody answer the phone. And if you can’t catch them, you can’t catch them. But a lot of these people aren’t doing that. They’re just blatantly violating (the quarantine). And the fact that you’re not verifying it, you’re not catching those,” Kim replied.
When told the only function the Hawaii National Guard is currently fulfilling at the airports is taking the temperature of arriving visitors, Kim queried, “Do you folks send back somebody who has a fever?”
“We had one in Hilo a couple of weeks ago. We sent them to the hospital to do additional health screening,” Higashi replied.
At that point, Dela Cruz jumped in and said, “What people are asking is, if you guys cannot verify the information before they leave, and even though they may be asymptomatic at the time, they could have symptoms later. People are asking, ‘Are you of the understanding that it takes just moments to spread the virus? You understand that?”
Higashi replied that he does.
Dela Cruz said he’s worried that without a better system of tracking visitors’ whereabouts, reopening the state to increased air travel would cause a resurgence in COVID-19 cases.
“I would hate to have a resurgence, and we’re back to where we are now,” Dela Cruz said. “And because we don’t have a clean system, how are we going to accommodate more visitors coming in?”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.