CT's Coronavirus Travel Ban Has Evolved. Here's What That Means.

CONNECTICUT — As coronavirus cases rise across the country, leaders are reexamining how to keep residents safe. Many of the procedures and schools of thought that made sense in the early summer aren't holding up as a second wave of infections sweeps through many municipalities heading into November.

For example, back in June, the governors of Connecticut, New York and New Jersey announced a mandatory 14-day quarantine for travelers coming into the region from states with high rates of coronavirus infections. The restriction affected travelers from areas with a daily positive coronavirus test rate higher than 10 cases per 100,000 residents or a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a seven-day rolling average. Over the months that followed, Connecticut issued close to $50,000 in fines to people who failed to toe the quarantine line in their travels to and from the state.

Those restrictions made sense. Health officials in Connecticut had good reason to believe they had stamped out the worst of the virus after the state was hit hard early in the pandemic. As summer came and COVID-19 positivity rates began to drop, the smart move was to ensure that the virus wasn't hitching a ride inside anyone entering the state from someplace where COVID-19 was blowing up.

As the leaves began to turn, the battle plan wasn't surviving contact with the enemy, however. Schools became the bellwether, as districts throughout the state either delayed opening or regressed to remote learning as local COVID-19 cases mounted. Last week, the state Department of Public Health said the infection rate in the Nutmeg State hit 2.9 percent, an ignominious height not seen since June.

The state's travel advisory map devolved from June's somewhat Christmas-like graphic:

Source: Connecticut Department of Public Health, June 24

... to last week's out-and-out five-alarm fire:

Source: Connecticut Department of Public Health, Oct. 20

Hartford-watchers got their first inkling the travel advisory was in for a course correction at a news conference last Oct. 19. Gov. Ned Lamont revealed Connecticut would be easing the restrictions, as the current guidelines meant banning travel for people from 40 or more states, which he called unenforceable.

Not to mention awkward. The latest data from the state Department of Public Health showed that Connecticut now exceeded its own metric of 10 cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day rolling average, meaning ... just what, exactly? Residents couldn't leave their homes until they quarantined for two weeks?

So instead of having to just meet either criterion, Lamont suggested states would need to meet both guidelines and the positivity rate would be lowered from 10 to 5 percent. That change would make qualifying for the travel advisory list more difficult (and hopefully serve to keep his own state off his list).

It would also take close to a dozen other states off the restricted list. Would that be tempting fate at a time when infection rates were climbing so rapidly the state had begun issuing weekly updated lists of towns in coronavirus red zones?

We'll never know. Lamont met with the governors of New York and New Jersey the next day. At that meeting, and after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo doubled down on the original criteria in an earlier news conference, the state chiefs decided those quarantine restrictions would stay in place.

They would just no longer apply to each other.

"There is no practical way to quarantine travel to New York from New Jersey and Connecticut," Cuomo said later. "It would have a disastrous effect on the economy."

So if you are driving up to Connecticut from Maryland, you will need to quarantine for two weeks (Maryland made the advisory list last week). Coming in from New Jersey? Officially discouraged, but there are no practical or legal restrictions.

"We're urging all of our residents to avoid unnecessary or non-essential travel between states at this time, but will not subject residents of our states to a quarantine if coming from a neighboring stat," the governors of all three states said in a joint statement last week.

Discouraging travel, however, could still have a tremendous economic impact on the area. Tens of thousands of commuters, not to mention shoppers, cross state borders in the tri-state area every day.

What about neighboring Rhode Island? Good question.

"The numbers aren't good, I won't sugarcoat it," Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo said last week about the spread in her state. "The bottom line is, we're not in a good place."

Good or not, that place they're in is right next to Connecticut. Lamont said last week he planned on reaching out to Raimondo and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker in the hopes of adding their states to the Relaxed Travel Restriction Club.

Just how big the club could become is a matter for grim speculation. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the analysts who have crafted the most widely used model for the spread of COVID-19, earlier this month estimated deaths will hit 5,727 in Connecticut by Feb. 1, preceded by another spike in positive cases come January.

This article originally appeared on the Across Connecticut Patch