Visitors entering New York from 16 states — nearly a third of the country — will now have to self-quarantine for 14 days, and could be forced into isolation through a judicial order if they’re found to have not complied with the mandate.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that visitors from California, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, and Tennessee will now have to abide by the order.
People traveling to New York from Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah were already required to self-quarantine, under an order announced by Cuomo last week.
He warned, at the time, that the list would change on a rolling basis, depending on the COVID-19 data in each state. New York has set a metric to identify states where the virus has reached a level at which travelers may pose a heightened risk.
“We're trying to keep the infection out of New York,” Cuomo said. “Now we have all these other states that are highly infected. We're afraid that they're going to fly into New York and cause the same problem and it's only getting worse.”
Under the quarantine order, people are required to self-isolate for 14 days when they arrive in New York, regardless of how they’ve traveled. If someone is reported for violating the quarantine order, they could be brought before a judge and placed into mandatory quarantine.
Most airlines, Cuomo said Monday, have now required people traveling to New York by plane to fill out paperwork with their contact information. That will allow the state to track those individuals while they’re in the state, and contact them if needed.
Within New York, the number of hospitalizations actually ticked up on Monday, with a net increase of 38 individuals requiring treatment. Long Island and New York City had the largest net increase in hospitalizations, according to the state’s dashboard.
Another 13 people died from the disease Monday, according to the data, bringing the statewide total number of deaths to 24,855.