PROVIDENCE – After nearly a month of Rhode Island being removed from a New York-Connecticut-New Jersey travel advisory list, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced Tuesday that it would be placed back on New York’s list due to the Ocean State’s uptick in coronavirus cases.
Shortly after New York’s announcement, New Jersey and Connecticut also added Rhode Island to their list of restricted states.
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The advisory requires individuals who are traveling to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut from areas of significant community spread, which all three states identified as including Rhode Island, to quarantine for 14 days. The quarantine applies to any person arriving from an area with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a seven-day rolling average or an area with a 10% or higher positivity rate over a seven-day rolling average, according to an announcement made by Cuomo’s office on Tuesday morning.
In response to the news, R.I. Department of Health spokesman Joseph Wendelken said Rhode Island is doing more testing than any other state in the country, are the only state with a dedicated centralized K-12 testing system in addition to a “high proportion” of college students whom almost all, he said, are being tested.
According to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, Rhode Island is conducting an average of 7.4 tests per 1,000 people, which is second in the country. Massachusetts is conducting 8.2 tests per every 1,000 people, according to their tracking system.
The Providence Business News cannot confirm if Rhode Island is the only state with a dedicated centralized K-12 testing system.
“Our aggressive strategy is key to our overall response as it allows us to quickly quarantine exposed individuals and prevent further transmission, but it does also result in comparatively higher incidence rates,” said Wendelken. “When you examine our percent positive rate, we are well below the metric being used by these states.”
On Monday, there were 5,347 tests administered, with an overall positive rate of 1.7%. When excluding both repeat positive and repeat negative test results, the positive rate was 6.2%, according to figures that RIDOH reported on Tuesday.
Rhode Island is already on Massachusetts’ travel ban list and has been since early August. Massachusetts public health officials follow insights from COVIDExitStrategy.org, which currently labels Rhode Island as “trending poorly,” with a rolling average of 108 new cases per million people. Massachusetts health officials re-examine states for their travel advisor lists each Wednesday.
