NJ is added to NY quarantine list but Gov. Cuomo won’t enforce it
A rise in COVID-19 cases in New Jersey and Connecticut has landed both states on New York's quarantine list, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo says New York won't enforce the rules against those residents.
The three states had announced the joint travel advisory this summer at a time when the Northeast was seeing relatively low rates of infection while other parts of the country saw spikes.
But the governor said Tuesday he doesn't expect residents from Connecticut or New Jersey to follow New York's rule requiring self-quarantine for 14 days for states on the list.
“There is no practical way to quarantine New York from New Jersey and Connecticut,” he told reporters in a conference call. "There are just too many interchanges, there are too many interconnections, there are too many people who live in one place and work in the other. It would have a disastrous effect on the economy.”
States are added to the quarantine list if they hit a threshold of averaging 10 or more new cases per day per 100,000 residents over a seven-day period.
States can also land on the quarantine list if 10% of tests came up positive on average over the past week.
Connecticut has averaged 11.2 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past week, while New Jersey has averaged 10.3, Pennsylvania has averaged 11.1 and Massachusetts has reached 9.9.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday that was he talking with New Jersey and New York about making it easier for states to avoid getting on the quarantine list.
But Cuomo's office said Monday that Lamont was only speaking for Connecticut.
Cuomo said he'll be talking with Connecticut and New Jersey officials Tuesday and expects to “have more to say" on travel rules by Wednesday.
He said they'll be talking “about making it clear to the extent travel among the states or between the states is non essential, it should be avoided.”
“The norm in the country is going up,” he said. “We are not going up the way the norm in the country is going up. And hence, they’re ‘quarantined’ from New York.”
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