If you’re going to Hawaii, you will be wearing a mask in public. Hawaii Gov. David Ige issued a statewide mask mandate Monday.
Ige’s emergency proclamation requires everyone to “wear a face covering over their nose and mouth in public,” and this includes if driving in a car with people who are not immediate members of one’s household.
Children under the age of 5 and those with certain medical conditions are exempted.
Also exempt are for those outdoors when physical distance of six (6) feet from other individuals (who are not members of the same household/living unit/residence) can be maintained at all times. Theoretically, this means it you’re on an uncrowded beach or around a pool and there’s six feet between you and others, you’ll be in good shape without the mask.
Before this statewide order, it had been left to the counties, which are the islands.
Visitors to Hawaii also must test negative within 72 hours of traveling to the islands. If you don’t test, you must go into a 14-day quarantine that has very strict boundaries, according to the Alaska Airlines Blog:
- No leaving your designated self-quarantine location for any reason—except for medical emergencies or to seek medical care.
- Food must be delivered at your own expense, so no sit down dinners at local spots or trips to the grocery store.
- Vacation rentals are not permitted as a quarantine location.
- Failure to follow this order is a misdemeanor and punishable by a maximum fine of $5,000 and/or 1-year imprisonment.
“We all agreed it’s important to have a single message and consistent exceptions,” Gov. Ige said of his new mask mandate, which has no end date.
Hawaii has had 16,734 confirmed diagnoses of COVID-19, and 223 deaths.
To compare, Alaska has had 24,419 confirmed cases of the China virus and has had 99 deaths associated with the illness.
Alaska has no statewide mask mandate, but many liberal lawmakers are pressing Gov. Mike Dunleavy to order one under his current emergency powers, which expire Dec. 15.
