Editor’s Note: Questions about stay-at-home orders can be submitted to tinyurl.com/TGIQ-A and The Garden Island staff will do our best to find you an answer by contacting county officials and Kauai District Health Officer Dr. Janet Berreman. Be aware these answers are informed with the latest directives from officials and can change as official rules and recommendations change. Contact the Hawai‘i Department of Health or your physician for official COVID-19 symptoms and steps to take if you think you have the virus.
Q: Where on Kaua‘i are the known cases of COVID-19? Which areas are we to be extra vigilant?
A: As of April 1, there are 258 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Hawai‘i, and 12 of these cases are on Kaua‘i.
Due to HIPPA laws, the exact locations and names of patients will not be released. However, the Department of Health has created a graphic that’s updated with preliminary data every Monday at noon. The most up-to-date map indicates there is no specific region on the island that has more than 1-5 coronavirus infections, and it is found throughout the island, with no cases reported to the west.
It remains important to stay vigilant in high-trafficked areas like grocery stores and continue to follow recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Q: Why are we accepting tourists to come here?
A: State and local governments are aiming to limit movements with various stay-at-home orders, curfews and mandatory self-quarantines. While travel is still allowed to the state, there are heavy restrictions on movement. Among these rules are Gov. David Ige’s orders to remain at home, save for those who work for essential businesses. Ige has also ordered a mandatory 14-day self-quarantine for travelers, whether they are tourists or residents.
Last month, Mayor Derek Kawakami has stated that, “Kaua‘i is on vacation.” Airline travel has decreased dramatically since that statement, and according to one report from the Star-Advertiser, only 826 passengers (167 visitors) flew into the state on Sunday. Most travel has been limited to essential businesses.
Tourist use at hotels and motels is explicitly discouraged per the Mayor’s Emergency Rule No. 5. And tourists and visitors using these properties are “not allowed to utilize any common spaces like pools, game rooms, and spas, etc.” and must have all food and items delivered to their door.
Additionally, as part of Rule No. 4, non-residents are required to pay for limited beach permits and parking passes. Bars, clubs, theaters, entertainment centers and visitor attractions are all closed. These are all to increase social distancing measures and deter tourism (as well as resident use).
When visitors land, they are given declaration forms, whether from the mainland, international or inter-island travel and reminded of the 14-day quarantine. On Kaua‘i, the use of checkpoints have been created to enforce these rules.
Q: Is it OK to send an 8-year-old to play at his friend’s house?
A: For the safety of everyone involved and in practicing social distancing, play dates should be canceled. However, child care service for essential employees is allowed, as long as class sizes, including the teacher, do not include more than five individuals, the rule states.
On the bright side, keep kids occupied with J.K. Rowling’s newly released “Harry Potter at Home.” This wizarding world features puzzles, games and the audiobook of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
HIPAA
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Can a list of covid19 rules, guidelines and penalties be listed in plain English for us to be aware of. In kauai.gov the proclamations are posted, but in legalese (a language few speak) we have got a lot of information, but it would be great if it could all be in one place. Common sense does not seem to apply, why would riding a motorcycle or being outside at night be a danger to oneself or others. If we need to follow the rules let’s post them
Fluff, yet again and at attempt at “levity”, missing the mark because as everyone knows Kauais Evangelicals think that Harry Potter is the devil. I advise them to read the bible, and stay home. But they won’t they will sneak off to a church, or a certain coffee places that will give them cover, let them sneak inside and sit down and hang out, while keeping out “non-beleivers”.
Have also witnessed some locals catering to the tourists, sneaking them into their cars for jaunts down the beach, and to go shopping. (Witnessed this yesterday, the person thought I was visiting too, and so blurted the whole thing out to me as he insisted on not keeping his social distance. He told me he was staying at a local B and B where he was being completely accommodated in all things, and going out quite often. I met him as he awaited a switching of cars at a certain parking lot. He was driving the owner of the B and B’s car. I watched the whole thing. It went down like some kind of weird apocalyptic drug deal. It was wild. A very local guy got out, even opened doors for the guy. He had a local beat up fishing truck.
Also, went into stores. Cashiers seemed very defensive about not wearing masks or even gloves to hand back money and change which is considered to be one of the number one ways you can pass the virus on. I stood in a double line with two cashiers next to each other, with someone less than 2 feet away. They were mocking someone who had previously come in and complained they weren’t wearing PPE, IE gloves.
Everyone now can wear a mask, the tide has turned and the government realizes everyone needs to wear them. So, they are encouraging people to do so, and to wear gloves. Businesses should provide gloves and masks for their cashiers at least and have a system for sanitizing money. In my opinion doing away with cash transactions for now should occur. I sanitize my money when I return from the store, and i keep all the change in a separate container. I try to use cards as much as I can. I sanitize the card when I get home.
Also, stores should be penalized for having no way to sanitize keypads on card machines. No one is wearing gloves. You use it with your bare-hands, and along comes a guy who coughs or sneezes or doesn’t wash his hands. He uses it, too. Then along come you, and you use it. Guess who gets sick? Do you have high blood pressure? Asthma? Diabetes? You get sick! Guess what? Not enough ventilators. You do not get resuscitated, because you have comorbidity. Guess what? You don’t want to guess the next part.
Any store that does not sanitize its keypads should be shutdown immediately.The virus can live on the surface of money for up to 24 hours, and on the coins for three to four days. In conclusion, these questions were so light and airy one could call them creampuff-ish.
Here are some real questions:
What is KPD going to do about joy riding down rice street? In the middle of the day no less, where cars were revving engines and racing down the street?
When will meals me offered to people who are also Kupuna and the handicapped and Compromised instead of just 70 or older?
IS KupunaKare charging for their services or is it free?
Is the country going to run a sewing collective, so that masks are made properly and up to specs?
Is there going to be a law on price-gouging home mask making? Saw one on the hippie network selling three for 13 dollars.
Is the county going to cite businesses that are not following the distancing guidelines, or using bare hands to pass back money or stand 6 feet away from each other or letting in more than 10 people? Because I can tell you that is happening a lot.
Is the county going to crack down on Churches on Easter Sunday, Good Friday, ect?
The Pope isn’t even holding Easter Service. I can site you at least 4 articles nationally where churches have defied orders, and their members have died. I can show you choirs that kept singing, and now people are dead. it was a church service in Korea that was the epicenter for the virus there. I am not willing to see people die just because they are ignorant buffoons.
If you can believe in God, and he is invisible then you can believe in the Coronavirus. You may not be able to see it, but Coronavirus is everywhere. Coronavirus doesn’t care who you pray too. It can get you too. Don’t call this fearmongering. Call it a wake up call.
Today, over a half a million people in the mainland are infected with the Coronavirus, and almost five thousand deaths have been recorded. Of all ages, increasingly. Yesterday, a newborn baby died of Coronavirus, and younger poeple are ending up on ventilators as well in increasing numbers. We have a young bartender, 37 years old on Oahu strong and fit fighting for his life on a ventilator. A lot of them were very excellent Christians, even Evangelicals who believed Jesus would save them.
You just think about that for a minute. Even God can’t stop the Coronavirus. Not even the Devil either. Coronavirus has no religious, political, social, or racial preferences. It hits the high and the low equally. Wake up, Kauai.
Also just because there are no new cases doesn’t mean there aren’t any new cases. It just means people showing no symptoms aren’t getting tested. There is also a testing backlog. Further, people showing no symptoms are now considered to be “super-carriers”, and are currently infecting many many people a day. Kauai’s upswing will come. But it shows perhaps that our excellent Mayor and his forward thinking are working. People need to cooperate though, and not think they are some kind of cutesy little renegade with some sort of tough false “Kauai pride”, to flout the orders.
Kauai Pride is “do not infect people”. That’s Kaua’i Pride. To all cashiers: wear gloves and PPE or stay home, or sanitize your hands before and after each monetary transaction!
Ok, done with my screed for today, thanks for letting me have my little rant.
How long will this Last? Being locked up at Home? What is It a danger to others if you’re out in you’re personal vehicles alone sitting and looking at the Surf? Not congregating with anyone Else? People are already starting to grow weary of the Govt! Mandates! Will an Uprising Occur? Think it through Politicos!
If the government/mayor was truly concerned for the people of Kauai ….Then he would simply stop visitors and monitor that the virus people are staying quarantined
Protect the Kapunas and your children.
Hello, Im coming from the mainland, Portland Oregon for work and have a lease on a house.
Im awRe of the 14 day quarantine and am down to comply. Im a strict level covid guy here, mostly isolated, always wear my mask ect. Ect.
Question?
Can we go outside on the property of our house? Or do we have to. Stay inside. The yard is private.
Mahalo
Mike