Coronavirus

Governors Announce Joint Travel Advisory To Stop COVID-19 Spread

The advisory requires people traveling from nine states to self-quarantine for 14 days.

Governors Announce Joint Travel Advisory To Stop COVID-19 Spread
Office of Gov. Andrew Cuomo

Governors from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut announced Wednesday they've issued a joint travel advisory. They're requiring people traveling from states with "significant community spread" of COVID-19 to quarantine for 14 days. 

The travel advisory goes into effect at midnight Wednesday, according to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The advisory applies to people arriving from a state with "a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a 7-day rolling average or a state with a 10% or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average." That includes Texas, Florida and Arizona.

Florida has done something similar. In late March, the state required travelers from the New York area to quarantine. At the time, New York had the most reported coronavirus cases in the country — specifically, New York City. Daily deaths there peaked on April 7, according to data from the city's health department, and have been declining ever since. 

"We went from the highest cases, the highest viral transmission rate, to some of the lowest rates in the country," Cuomo said. "No one else had to accomplish as much as we had to accomplish in such a short period of time. No one else had to bend the curve as much as we had to bend the curve."

Cuomo said the travel advisory will be enforced, but that it's up to each state to decide how. In New York, a person that violates the travel advisory could be fined thousands of dollars.