New York State Enacts New COVID-19 Quarantine Rules

New York State is making big changes to its COVID-19 quarantine rules. The state is eliminating its list of states from which travelers must quarantine for two weeks. Instead, the state will allow travelers to test their way to a much shorter quarantine period. The new rules will take effect on November 4th and apply to everyone, except residents of select surrounding states: New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Governor Andrew Cuomo says there is too much daily traffic between those four states to effectively regulate.

No List, Just Two Travel Groups

Until now, New York (along with Connecticut and New Jersey) maintained a list of states from which travelers would be required to quarantine. The list was based on the number of COVID-19 cases in each state, and was updated weekly.

The rules applied to just eight states initially, making enforcement somewhat manageable. But as coronavirus cases spikes across the country, the list itself got out of control. As of October 27th, the quarantine list (which still applies in New Jersey) includes 41 U.S. jurisdictions. That’s 39 states, plus Puerto Rico and Guam. How does any state enforce such a list when borders between the states are open? The answer is…. you don’t.

New York’s new quarantine rules will now divide everyone into two travel groups:

• New York residents traveling out of state for under 24 hours.
• Everyone else.

For all intents, residents of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts are treated as New York residents. They will not be asked to quarantine or test upon entry, unless they’ve been elsewhere. The state will continue to provide exemptions for essential workers.

Testing & Quarantine Procedures

Out-of-State Travelers

Under the new rules, travelers will have a couple of options when they arrive in New York. The first is to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival, no testing necessary. This is the old rule, now expanded to cover travel from anywhere, except the four surrounding states deemed exempt.

The second option is to undergo two COVID-19 PCR tests. Travelers would take the first within three days of their arrival in New York, and submit their results on the state’s Traveler Health Form. This rule applies to New York and out-of-state residents alike. Thus, the state will require New Yorkers to figure out where and how to get tested for COVID-19 during their travels.

Travelers must quarantine upon arrival in New York State, regardless of the result of their first PCR test. Four days after their arrival, they can take a second COVID-19 PCR test. If negative, they will be allowed to move on with their lives. No more self-isolation.

New York Residents Traveling Less Than 24 Hours

Under the new quarantine rules for New York, any resident who’s been out of the state for less than 24 hours will NOT need to quarantine. However, they will be required to test for COVID-19 four days after they return.

Alternatively, they can quarantine for 14 days upon their return.

NY Has Its Own COVID-19 Issues

New York is enacting these new quarantine rules at the same time its own COVID-19 case numbers are rising. Its daily average of 10.8 cases per 100,000, as of November 3rd, is above the threshold it has set for other states when imposing quarantines.

So people in New York face about the same risk for COVID-19 as those in California, Oregon and Washington. But none of those West Coast states have imposed travel restrictions at any time during the pandemic. They’ve had no mass quarantines on arriving visitors, nor even mass testing. Yet West Coast states have arrived at the same result.

Hmmm…..

No More CT, NJ, NY Coordination

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have coordinated their response to the coronavirus since June. But as New York introduces its own new quarantine rules, the other two states are going their own ways.

New Jersey has made no changes to its protocols at this time. Unless that changes, you can expect state officials to maintain their state quarantine list until further notice. Notably, New Jersey says that “self-quarantine is voluntary, but compliance is expected.”

Connecticut, like New Jersey, is also maintaining the state quarantine list and updating it weekly. Travelers arriving from any state on that list must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in Connecticut. But Governor Ned Lamont recently issued an Executive Order that allows travelers to test out of quarantine. To select the testing option, travelers must undergo a COVID-19 PCR test within 72 hours of their arrival in Connecticut. If the result is negative, no quarantine will be necessary.

Final Thoughts

Effective November 4th, New York State will introduce new quarantine rules to deal with COVID-19. Depending on where you’ve been, the rules could be stricter or more lenient.

A traveler returning from Oregon, for example, would not have had to do anything special under the old rules. They weren’t required to quarantine or get a COVID-19 test. Now, they’ll have to quarantine for 4-5 days at minimum.

But travelers returning from Florida had long faced mandatory 14-day quarantines upon arrival in New York. Now they have a chance to test out of this self-isolation after just a few days.

The end result is that more people will legally be required to quarantine when they visit the Empire State.

Meet the New Rules, Same as the Old Rules…

New York State’s new quarantine rules are still a bit overboard. Maybe not as bad as Ireland’s restrictions, but still indicative of a wrong-headed approach to this problem. New York is trying to swat a fly with a sledgehammer. COVID-19 is a very big fly, of course, but the sledgehammer will further damage New York’s economy and a fragile travel industry. And the fly will still get away.

I get it, the state had one of the world’s most deadly COVID-19 outbreaks this past spring, and they are loathe to repeat it. But quarantines aren’t helping much. If they were, New York wouldn’t be seeing case numbers comparable to California, a state with no quarantines.

New York’s new rules, allowing shorter quarantines with testing, are unlikely to change anything. First, it’s really difficult to enforce any quarantine measures in the United States. We freely cross state lines, and officials rarely ask where we’ve been. Second, the virus is everywhere. It’s in your state, it’s in my state, it’s in New York State. Once travelers are released from quarantine in New York, they’ll find themselves moving around in a state with its own significant virus risk.

Wear a Mask

There’s a better way to fight COVID-19. It’s much cheaper than expensive tests and more effective than imposing mass quarantines on mostly healthy people.

Simply wear a mask.

Masks have been proven effective. Joseph G. Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings program at Harvard tells the New York Times that when you wear a mask, “you protect yourself, you protect others, you prevent yourself from touching your face.”

New York’s Quarantine Rules Discourage Travel

If the new rules do anything, they will discourage an even larger number of people from traveling. Maybe that’s the point. New Yorkers will face testing and/or quarantine if they leave their state for any length of time (not counting travels to the four exempt contiguous states). Out-of-state travelers will go elsewhere if they can, to avoid quarantine and testing altogether.

If someone tests positive for the virus, they should quarantine. And if a country or region has no active coronavirus cases, you could make a strong argument to quarantine new arrivals in order to prevent its introduction. Otherwise, quarantine rules serve no purpose. It is security theater, at best, doing little to combat community transmission of the virus. It offers New Yorkers a false sense of security. which could make them more likely to let down their guard.