Cuomo: Travel within Tri-State area should be avoided due to COVID-19 spike

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) announced on Tuesday that Arizona and Maryland have been added to New York’s COVID-19 travel advisory, bringing the number of states on the list up to 40.

The advisory requires people traveling to New York from certain states to quarantine for 14 days. States are placed on the list if they have a positive test rate that exceeds 10 per 100,000 residents or a positivity rate of 10 percent or higher over a 7-day period. 

Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania also meet the travel advisory criteria, but Cuomo acknowledged placing them on the list would not be effective but Cuomo discouraged any non-essential travel to those three states.

“We are now in a situation where 43 states meet the criteria for our travel advisory,” Cuomo said in a statement. “This is really a bizarre outcome, considering New York once had the highest infection rate.”

“There is no practical way to quarantine New York from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut. There are just too many interchanges, interconnections, and people who live in one place and work in the other,” Cuomo said.

He also noted that barring travel between these states would have a detrimental effect on the economy.

“[R]emember while we’re fighting this public health pandemic we’re also fighting to open up the economy. However, to the extent travel between the states is not essential, it should be avoided,” Cuomo said.