NY, NJ and Connecticut governors mandate 2-week Covid-19 QUARANTINE for visitors from high-infection states

Three US states’ governors have imposed a 14-day mandatory quarantine from nine other states said to have high Covid-19 infection rates, declaring the “smart” precaution is needed to keep the former hotspots from reigniting.

The governors of pandemic epicenter New York, New Jersey and Connecticut announced the quarantine on Wednesday, requiring visitors heralding from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, North and South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington to quarantine themselves for two weeks upon arriving in the tri-state area.

“This is a smart thing to do,” New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told reporters, reasoning that after taking “our people…through hell and back,” the “last thing we need to do right now is subject our folks to another round” of the coronavirus.

New Jersey was the second-worst hit state in the US, reporting over 13,000 deaths with the virus as of Wednesday. New York continues to lead the nation in Covid-19 deaths, with over 31,200 casualties according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. Connecticut was comparatively spared, coming in at number eight with nearly 4,300 deaths.

The decision is somewhat ironic, given that Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo sought to implement similar restrictions on visitors from New York back in March, only to be met with lawsuit threats from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Texas mandated a quarantine for visitors from Louisiana in March during a surge in cases in that state.

Many of the states deemed infectious hotspots have begun reopening their economies, resulting in an inevitable growth in cases as residents who’ve spent the last three months in near-total isolation begin to mingle. Additionally, nationwide protests against police brutality have brought hundreds of thousands of Americans into close contact with one another. This includes some of the people who had scolded anti-lockdown protesters for their recklessness just weeks before.

While New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have adopted statewide regulations mandating the wearing of masks in public, the quarantine states - except Washington - have not. US health authorities have repeatedly changed their official stance on mask-wearing, initially declaring it unnecessary for healthy people to sport the now-ubiquitous face coverings only to flip-flop midway through the pandemic and declare them a must. Even in non-mandatory-mask states, many businesses require them for entry.

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