We seriously feel for the folks who made travel plans to visit Hawaii prior to our country falling headfirst into a global pandemic. But if you’ve been holding on to hope that you’d be able to resume those travel plans as soon as the state’s mandatory 14-day quarantine requirement for island arrivals expired at the start of next month, we’ve got some bad news for you. Hawaii Governor David Ige has officially announced that the state is pushing back all trans-pacific travel to the islands for another month, until at least October 1st, due to a recent surge of cases in the state.
“We cannot deny that Hawaii is seeing a surge in positive COVID-19 cases,” Ige said in a press conference announcing the extension, “There are numerous clusters and community spread.” According to Travel + Leisure, over the course of August Hawaii added an additional 3,000 coronavirus cases throughout the state — which is more than what the state had counted between March and July — with most of the cases coming from Honolulu county, bringing the total as of August 20th. 2020 to 5,586.
As a result of the explosion of cases, many bars, beaches, parks, and trails across the islands will remain closed to the public and stricter measures on indoor and outdoor gatherings are being implemented, including reducing the size of gatherings to no more than five at museums, movie theaters, and even while engaging in outdoor activities like boating. CNN reports that Governor Ige has indicated that he’s in active dialogue with the mayors of Hawaii every day on how to best bring travelers back to the island as safely and quickly as possible, but as of now, there is still no concrete plan on how the state will begin to open its shores to travelers again.
Given the uncertainty of the virus, it’s pretty safe to say that if you have plans to fly to Hawaii in 2020 or early 2021, you’re probably better off postponing those as long as possible.