Travelers from California face a growing set of restrictions as destinations foreign and domestic begin to grapple with life post-pandemic.
When the European Union reopens its borders Wednesday, that won’t include travelers from the U.S. And on Tuesday, New York state expanded the list of states from which travelers must quarantine to 16, including California.
Now, when you wake up on the other side of your next red-eye flight into LaGuardia, JFK, or any other airport in New York, you will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days. The same goes for 15 other states, up from the initial nine that the governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut put restrictions on last week.
In addition to California, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and Tennessee were added to the list, while Washington state was removed. Travelers from Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Utah were already required to enter self-quarantine upon arrival in New York.
If you're traveling to New York from the following states you must self-quarantine for 14 days.
The states are: AL, AR, AZ, CA, FL, GA, IA, ID, LA, MS, NC, NV, SC, TN, TX, UT.
— Archive: Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 30, 2020
Any hopes of a mid-pandemic European vacation have also been squashed. There are 15 countries who will again be granted access to the E.U. beginning Wednesday: Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay and China.
Notably missing from the list: the United States. Joining the U.S. on the list of countries who are not welcome back: Brazil, Russia and India, the three countries that follow the U.S. in total coronavirus cases.
With 2.6 million confirmed cases, the U.S. has more than those three countries combined. Its per-capita case rate is the highest of any wealthy country (796 per 100,000 residents), however its death rate trails the U.K., Spain and France, which were all set to open their borders Wednesday. In all three E.U. states, however, their cases were flat or falling. Cases in the U.S. are surging for a second time and have surpassed their initial peak.
With summer here and vacations on the horizon, the coronavirus crisis has thrown many plans into flux. Yosemite National Park postponed opening more campgrounds after the spike in new cases around the state, while Disneyland canceled its planned reopening for July 17. For months, Hawaii has required all visitors to the islands quarantine for two weeks.
The result could be a loss of 150 million trips by American families this summer, according to a forecast by the American Automotive Association (AAA). A report issued by the agency last week estimated Americans would hit the road 15% less this summer — still 700 million trips from July 1 through Sept. 30 — the biggest hit to travel in the country since the 2009 recession.
