California Removed From 14 Day Quarantine List In NY, NJ, CT

On Tuesday, California was removed from the 14 day quarantine list in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut due to improving COVID-19 positivity statistics.

California, along with Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada and Ohio, were removed for either having their positive test rate drop below 10 out of 100,000 residents or for having a lower than 10% positive test rate on average over 7 days. From late June until Wednesday, Californians had to quarantine in the visiting state for 14 days. While Californians will still need to fill out a travel health form when going to New York, they are no longer deemed a COVID-19 public health risk.

“When other states and territories make progress fighting COVID-19, that’s good for New York and while I am glad to see areas removed from the travel advisory list, it still remains far too long,” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in a statement. “Make no mistake: We must continue to be New York Tough and stay smart. Wearing masks, social distancing and hand washing is what tamed this beast in New York and we must keep it up.”

New York’s announcement came only hours before Governor Gavin Newsom announced that California’s COVID-19 caseload went down another 15% since the last week, and that the state positivity percentage had hit its lowest point since May at 3.6%. With hospital and ICU rates also down by 22%, the removal from state quarantine travel lists was only another piece of good news regarding the virus in California.

Our average #COVID19 caseload is down another 15% this week.

Our positivity rate is 3.6% (lowest since May).

Our hospital & ICU rates are down 22%.

But we can’t let up. This can all change if we don’t continue to be smart.

WEAR A MASK. Physically distance.

We can do this.

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 16, 2020

“California came after New York as the joke state on COVID-19 rates and deaths,” said San Diego-area business health advisor Joseph Romano. “We had states like Texas and Florida bashing California, especially over how California had bragged about ‘beating the curve‘ early on. But California hunkered down once again in July and brought back stringent measures while a lot of states, mostly Southern states, became notorious for having beach parties and not wearing masks.”

“Now look where we are. California is back to being seen as a safer state while Texas still has high rates, Florida is bogged down in thousands of new positive cases a day, and states like Wyoming and South Dakota are skyrocketing in the percentages of positive cases. Look at those travel maps – California is just one of a handful to have travel restrictions be removed like this.”

“We still have a long way to go, but California is doing a lot better and now has more economic opportunities open that a lot of other states don’t have travel-wise.”

COVID-19 rates are expected to go down even further this month in California, with more counties also expected to move down in county  reopening tier levels.