New York State has no doubt shouldered one of the heaviest loads with COVID-19. The small East Coast state has suffered record job losses and is just now slowly returning to a sense of normalcy. For the past several months, out of state travellers were required to complete a 14-day quarantine. This also applied to New Yorkers who left the state for more than 24 hours. As of November 4th, travellers can enter New York without a 14-day quarantine and provide a negative COVID test and 3-day quarantine instead.
Travellers Entering NY No Longer Need 14-Day Quarantine
The statement released by State Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed that 2-week quarantines would no longer be a requirement for entry. Instead, visitors can provide two separate negative Covid tests along with a quarantine of at least 3-days. However, there are a few asterisks with these guidelines. Travellers coming from outside a neighbouring state (NJ, CT, PA, MA) for more than one day will need to submit a negative test three days prior to departure. Once in New York, guests will be subject to three days of quarantine. On day four, travellers will receive an additional test. If the test comes back negative, travellers are free to go. However, if it’s positive travellers will need to isolate in accordance with local health authorities guidelines.
Additionally, travellers who were in another state for less than 24 hours will not be required to test prior to their departure from said state. Moreover, they won’t be required to quarantine on arrival in New York. These travellers will still be required to fill out a traveller information form and will need to take a Covid test four days post-arrival in NY.
Travel Restrictions Continue to Vary by State
As COVID continues to move full swing in the US, most states have individual regulations for inter-state travel. Alaska, for example, requires travellers to purchase a $250 Covid-19 test and quarantine at their own expense. However, Florida, Delaware, Arizona, Alabama and others have no restrictions at all. Others are taking a different approach based on where you’re travelling from—namely, Connecticut. Any traveller looking to enter Connecticut from a state with a positive rate of more than 10 out of 100,000 will need to quarantine for 14 days.
This comes just before the holiday season, which is one of New York City’s most visited times of the year. Sadly, this year will be much different. There will be no crowds at the famous Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, no Christmas Spectacular show and the NYE ball drop is going fully virtual. However, small changes to guidelines such as these make travel easier will still maintaining safety. And just may serve as a revival for tourism across New York state.
