New York imposes quarantine on eight US states with high COVID-19 rates
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The travel advisory applies to anyone coming 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 per cent or higher positivity rate over a seven-day rolling average.
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut issued a travel advisory Wednesday that requires people arriving from states with high coronavirus rates to quarantine for 14 days.
The travel advisory applies to anyone coming 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 per cent or higher positivity rate over a seven-day rolling average, according to a joint announcement from the governors of the three states.
"We have to make sure the virus doesn't come in on a plane," said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
"We worked very hard to get the viral transmission rate down, and we don't want to see it go up," he added.
Currently, those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Utah, the governor of New York state Andrew Cuomo told reporters.
People coming from those states, including returning New York, New Jersey and Connecticut residents, will be asked to quarantine upon arrival for 14 days.
Anyone found breaking the quarantine could face fines of $1,000 rising to $5,000 for repeated violations, Cuomo said. He added that US states would be added or taken off the quarantine list depending on the number of new cases per 100,000 people or the rate of positive tests.
New Jersey's Phil Murphy said people in the three states had been "through hell and back" and did not want "another round" of virus infections.
Some southern and western states have been reporting record numbers of cases.
The University of Washington predicts 180,000 US deaths by October or 146,000 if 95 per cent of Americans wear masks.
So far, the US has recorded more than 2.3 million cases of the virus and more than 121,000 deaths. Health officials say the coming weeks will be crucial to stem the outbreaks.