With a growing discrepancy between the surge of COVID-19 cases nationwide and Connecticut’s slowing spread of the virus, the top administrator at Bradley International Airport called for a COVID-19 testing site for arriving travelers as an alternative to the two-week quarantine urged for people arriving from high-risk states.
“We would love to see a testing site right in the airport. That’s something that we have told the state and I’ve told [Gov. Ned Lamont] directly that we’d be very much in favor of,” said Kevin Dillon, executive director of the Connecticut Airport Authority, which oversees Bradley International Airport.
Meanwhile, Gov. Lamont on Tuesday doubled the number of states from which travelers to Connecticut are directed to self-quarantine for two weeks. Connecticut now advises travelers from sixteen states with high COVID-19 infection rates to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival or obtain a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours. The states are California, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and Tennessee, in addition to Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah.
On Tuesday, Lamont said he would now consider COVID-19 tests for incoming passengers arriving at Bradley.
“I think it makes a certain amount of sense. The logistics of it would be complicated,” he said, noting it would be done in coordination with New York and New Jersey. “That’s a long way of saying, I think we are going to get it done.”
Also Tuesday the state announced it’s lowest positivity rate since the coronavirus pandemic took hold of the state in March. Of 21,416 administered tests, 152 came back positive (0.7%). Ninety-eight people remain hospitalized with COVID-19 and there were two additional deaths due to the virus.
But nationwide, the coronavirus outlook is grim. COVID-19 spikes in the South and West prompted Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, to warn Tuesday that the number of new infections in America could double to 100,000 a day if the surge is not contained.
The expanded restrictions for travelers arriving in Connecticut came as COVID-19 cases soared across the country and states like Arizona, Texas and Tennessee rolled back reopening schedules. The directive applies to anyone traveling into Connecticut, New York or New Jersey from a state that has a new daily positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents or a state with a 10% or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average.
New York has indicated that it may impose fines of up to $10,00 for noncompliance with the quarantine directive, but Lamont has said that he hopes travelers into Connecticut will voluntarily comply.
Dillon noted that current CDC guidelines do not require temperature checks or other COVID-19 health screenings for domestic travelers passing through airports. But he envisions a COVID-19 testing site that could administer tests to travelers as soon as they disembark from an aircraft.
Few American airports offer COVID-19 testing onsite, though John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, New York recently opened its own testing clinic for employees. The site currently has the capacity to screen up to 500 airport workers per day and it is not yet available to passengers, according to the New York Daily News. Employees can elect to receive either a typical COVID-19 test or an antibody test.
Travelers flying into Alaska can opt to take an airport COVID-19 test instead of either quarantining for 14 days upon arrival to the state or presenting proof of a negative COVID-19 test when they land. In Europe, airport testing is available at some airports, including those in Iceland and Austria.
In the Northeast, states have imposed a patchwork of quarantine restrictions. Maine, for instance, requires a two-week quarantine or proof of a negative COVID-19 test for out-of-state visitors at all lodgings. But in Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker announced Tuesday that the state was further relaxing its 14-day quarantine guidance by exempting travelers from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire.
Dillon said he did not have data on how many people have arrived in Connecticut from states with high rates of COVID-19 infections. But he said that the number of travelers passing through Bradley was down 98% when the pandemic began, compared to a similar time period a year ago. In the last week, traveler traffic was down about 70-75%, indicating a slight resurgence of air travel.
With additional states added to the tr-istate travel advisory, those gains could quickly fade.
“As this quarantine takes effect, you’re gong to see those percentages of declining traffic increase again,” Dillon said.
To state Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, creating a COVID-19 testing site at Bradley is a “no brainer” that would help Connecticut maintain its low COVID-19 caseload as infections surge nationwide.
Since Connecticut is already paying for considerable testing right now, Lesser added, it would make sense to provide testing capacity at Bradley, where travelers from across the country could bring the virus with them.
“I think we need to take steps that show we’re serious about this potential risk, that folks who have been traveling from any of these states, whether they’re Connecticut residents or not, should be seen as potentially exposed,” he said. “We’ve lost thousands of Connecticut residents to this horrible disease. Why would be want to go back to where we were a couple of months ago?”
Eliza Fawcett can be reached at elfawcett@courant.com.
Courant staff writer Nicholas Rondinone contributed to this report.
