Travel to and from work in New Jersey exempt from ban
Travelers from Delaware are now required to undergo a 14-day quarantine when arriving in New York and New Jersey.
The revised list from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy also includes Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.
New Jersey’s travel advisory applies to any person arriving from a state with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents or a state with a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average.
People going back and forth to work to and from New Jersey are exempt from the order according to the governor’s office.
“Several outbreaks across New Jersey are directly tied to travel from COVID-19 hotspots nationwide,” said Murphy. “In order to responsibly continue down our road back to restart and recovery, we must remain vigilant in our collective effort to beat the virus and reduce the rate of transmission. I urge those arriving from one of these nineteen states to self-quarantine and get a COVID-19 test to prevent additional flareups across the state and ensure the health and safety of their fellow New Jerseyans.”
Travelers and those residents who are returning from impacted states should self-quarantine at their home, hotel, or other temporary lodging. Individuals should leave the place of self-quarantine only to seek medical care/treatment or to obtain food and other essential items.
Travelers and residents returning from impacted states typically will not need to check-in with public health officials, unless otherwise they are involved in contract tracing efforts or required to do so by their employer or any other federal, state or local law or order. It is expected that individuals will follow the public health advisory to self-quarantine.
In the graph below, the blue line average of Delawareans testing positive has declined slightly since the end of the month but is above New York’s benchmarks. The orange line denotes new positive cases.
By contrast, New York state saw a 1.04 percent postive rate in Tuesday results.
“As states around the country experience increasing community spread, New York is taking action to ensure the continued safety of our phased reopening. Our entire response to this pandemic has been by the numbers, and we’ve set metrics for community spread just as we set metrics for everything,” Cuomo said. “Three more states have now reached the level of spread required to qualify for New York’s travel advisory. We will now require individuals coming from Delaware, Kansas and Oklahoma to quarantine for 14 days. New Yorkers did the impossible – we went from the worst infection rate in the United States to one of the best – and the last thing we need is to see another spike of COVID-19.”
Delaware has been dealing with an outbreak of coronavirus in the beach area of Eastern Sussex County. Cases were initially tied to high school senior week activities.
Fifty-eight Covid-19 cases were also reported at a corrections center in Sussex.
At one point during the pandemic, Delaware Gov. John Carney required all travelers to the state to undergo quarantines.
The restriction was rarely enforced but led to a few checkpoints, including one near a popular Claymont liquor store frequented by Pennsylvanians. At the time, Pennsylvania had closed its liquor stores.
