Californians Ordered To Quarantine If Traveling To New York Area

LOS ANGELES, CA — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday imposed a 14-day quarantine on all travelers from California, responding to the recent spike in new COVID-19 cases and other coronavirus metrics in the Golden State.

New York and a handful of other states have been imposing quarantine orders on states with surging COVID-19 cases in an effort to protect their residents. This is the first time California has been added to the list of states whose travelers are required to be under quarantine; New Jersey and Connecticut also have imposed quarantines on travelers from those states.

Los Angeles alone, the epicenter of the state's outbreak, saw more new cases of coronavirus Monday than all but three states. Health officials in the Inland Empire and rural parts of the state have reported ICU beds at capacity as the outbreak grows rapidly. Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered bars in seven counties closed again over the weekend to stem the tide of the outbreak. And health officials in San Francisco halted the planned reopening of bars, museums and zoos on Friday due a surge of new cases in the Bay Area.

"As an increasing number of states around the country fight significant community spread, New York is taking action to maintain the precarious safety of its phased, data-driven reopening," Cuomo said. "We've set metrics for community spread just as we've set metrics for everything the state does to fight COVID-19, and eight more states have reached the level of spread required to qualify for New York's travel advisory, meaning we will now require individuals traveling to New York from those states to quarantine for 14 days."

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Cuomo added eight states Tuesday to New York's quarantine list, which was originally announced on June 24. There are now 16 states on the list.

The quarantine applies to "any person arriving from a state with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a seven-day rolling average or a state with a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a seven-day rolling average."

The states added Tuesday were California, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and Tennessee. They join Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

Visitors from states on the list are asked to self-quarantine once they arrive in New York. Cuomo's office said noncompliance with the quarantine order may be deemed a violation of the state's public health law and subject to a civil penalty of up to $10,000.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.