Hawai‘i COVID-19 News Update – May 7, 2021
Aloha,
Here’s the latest COVID-19 news and issues facing Hawai'i that you need to know this week.
Hawai‘i’s residents can now upload their vaccination information to the Safe Travels website, enabling inter-island travel without a COVID-19 pre-travel test.
- The state will launch its vaccination passport program on Tuesday, May 11, and officials encourage people to bring their vaccination cards with them to the airport.
- State leaders expect to keep the Safe Travels program in place throughout 2021 as vaccination rates continue to slip on the mainland.
- Lt. Gov. Josh Green said, “ I don’t think we’ll sunset that program until presumably fall – November, December – just because we’re having some trouble reaching herd immunity on the mainland.”
- All travelers arriving on Maui are now required to take a second COVID-19 rapid test before they can leave Kahului airport, but some say they don’t mind.
- “I’m here to follow the rules,” said Cuong Chan, a visitor from Dallas who was among the first to take the post-arrival test. “I want to keep everybody safe. I want to keep especially the locals safe so that we can have a good time and not worry about it.
Gov. Ige says he won’t change the state’s mask mandate and travel entry rules, despite new CDC guidelines that ease mask mandates for fully vaccinated people.
- Gov. Ige is concerned that Hawai‘i’s case count appears to be stuck at an elevated level.
- According to the State Department of Health, Hawai‘i has an average daily new case count of 94 and a 1.7% positivity rate.
- Meanwhile, state and city leaders agreed to keep O‘ahu in Tier 3 without modifications for at least the next four weeks, despite a bump in cases and hospitalizations.
- Gov. Ige and Mayor Blangiardi opted to work together on any potential changes like adding vaccination levels and other metrics to the system, which manages restrictions to businesses and activities to help mitigate the spread of the virus.
- Mayor Blangiardi said, “We are in a good place, and we want to move forward but right now, we kind of put the breaks on further expansion while we focus on continued vaccinations.”
Supply for the COVID-19 shot exceeds demand for the first time in Hawai‘i.
- “Fewer people are rushing to get vaccinated. We’ve reached all the low-hanging fruit,” said Department of Health spokesman Brooks Baehr.
- The state cut back on the number of doses it ordered from the federal government this week – asking for just 64,000 of the 78,500 doses available.
- A new poll from Civil Beat and Hawaiʻi News Now reveals most people surveyed in the state say they will get vaccinated.
- To date, nearly 1.3 million doses have been administered in Hawai‘i.
Despite travel demand, Hawai‘i’s tourism industry is still struggling to recover.
- A new survey says Hawai‘i is expected to lose more than 20,000 hotel industry jobs by the end of the year. The American Hotel and Lodging Association says that figure makes Hawai‘i the nation’s fifth-worst state for hotel job losses.
- In a Honolulu Civil Beat story about the imperative of hospitality jobs, Carl Bonham, executive director of UHERO, says, “In the short term, and that could be two or three years, it’s all about tourism in terms of getting people back to work.”
- Gov. Ige said he is “really disappointed” that the Hawai‘i State Legislature passed a bill to reduce funding for the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority (HTA) from $79 million to $60 million next year. The bill also cuts off the flow of hotel tax revenue to HTA. In a bid to replenish lost tourism revenue, community and business leaders launched the Movers and Shakas program late last year. The New York Times delves into the program’s efforts to bring more skilled professionals to the islands.
Mahalo,
Your Bennet Group Team