Mayor Interview: Voluntary Test 72-Hours After Arrival in Maui County Requested

By Wendy Osher

Governor David Ige has verbally approved Maui Mayor Michael Victorino’s request to allow Maui County residents to travel solely between Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi without having to quarantine for 14 days or take a pre-travel test.

The information was shared during an afternoon press conference hosted by Maui Managing Director Sandy Baz.  According to Baz, the governor also verbally approved the mayor’s request to allow inter-county travelers to participate in the pre-travel testing program.

This will allow travelers flying between counties to be exempt from quarantine if they provide a negative test within 72-hours prior to departure (Same as the trans-Pacific pre-travel testing program which starts on Oct. 15).

The county is still awaiting the governor’s formal written approval of the rules and still working with the governor, attorney general and other county mayors on the second test, or post-arrival test, for travelers arriving into Maui County.

“Like everything else, we’re moving on to our next phase, and that’s opening up Maui County and the state of Hawaiʻi to trans-Pacific flights.  We’re looking to start as of Oct. 15, which is this coming Thursday,” said Maui Mayor Michael Victorino during a morning interview on KPOA 93.5 FM.

“We’re requiring our travelers to have a 72-hour pre-test before arriving here in Maui County–a negative test for COVID-19.  All travelers that are connecting via Honolulu, as long as that traveler is arriving on the same day, will not have to go through another screening when they arrive here in Maui.  If a traveler decides to stay on Oʻahu and travel to the neighbor islands a few days later, he or she would be required to take a test to come to Maui.  Just like if you’re coming interisland, and you’re coming to visit, we require you to have a test.  The visitor would have the same rule.”

“Maui County has requested a voluntary test 72-hours after arriving here on Maui.  The protocol is to make sure that they come in healthy, they stay healthy and they return home healthy.  We want to help keep Maui County healthy.  That’s our mantra,” said Mayor Victorino.

These secondary tests will be administered beginning on Oct. 18, many of them at the hotels.  “The hotels have agreed to give us facilities, rooms or a ballroom so that their guests and guests in adjacent hotels next to them can come on over and get their secondary test.  There are some incentives that have been laid out, and we are ready for that,” said Mayor Victorino.

A COVID-19 Management Level chart was also unveiled at today’s press conference, showing the metrics the county is using to determine it’s response level.

Maui’s daily new cases dropped to zero, down from the one case reported a day earlier.  The percent positivity rate for Maui County is 0.1% (-0.1).