Mayor Mitch Roth has urged Gov. David Ige to immediately reinstate pretravel testing requirements for all trans-Pacific passengers, regardless of residency or vaccination status, as the county struggles amid an ongoing surge of COVID-19.
“The consistent rise of COVID-19 cases within the state of Hawaii and across the country has reached record heights and has put an unbearable strain on our health systems and communities at-large,” Roth wrote in a letter to Ige on Wednesday. “On Hawaii Island alone, our hospitals are at capacity and are unable to in-take any more critical care patients.”
With limited hospital capacity, Hawaii County will be taking “drastic measures” to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus but will rely on the state to mitigate travel-related spread “while we work to mitigate community spread by whatever means necessary.”
“After visiting all of our island’s three major hospitals this week, it has become abundantly clear that we need to take immediate action to slow the spread of COVID-19 and alleviate the mounting pressures on our hospital systems,” said Cyrus Johnasen, a spokesman for Roth. “Although we understand that travel-related spread is only a portion of the total case counts in our county, we believe it is a step that must be taken to keep our residents healthy and safe.
“We must, however, take it upon ourselves to do the little things like wearing a mask, distancings, limiting our gatherings, and most importantly, getting vaccinated to truly stop the spread in our communities. It’s all of our kuleana.”
Roth’s letter did not specify what other measures the county will take to further tame the ongoing surge, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant.
Roth, however, told County Council members Tuesday that the administration is working on revising its emergency rules to submit to Ige for approval.
Those revisions likely will include the restriction of gatherings at parks and beaches that allows people to traverse the parks only to get to the ocean to surf, swim or fish, but not to gather or sit.
Email Stephanie Salmons at ssalmons@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
