I recently completed my last day of imprisonment aka the 14 day quarantine. After the governor promised that he would end the quarantine substituting a COVID test in lieu of it I booked a trip to the Mainland. But then the governor reneged on his promise, but by then it was too late to stop the trip so I went ahead with it anyway. Thus I faced two weeks of sitting in my house when I returned to Kaua‘i.
I recently completed my last day of imprisonment aka the 14 day quarantine. After the governor promised that he would end the quarantine substituting a COVID test in lieu of it I booked a trip to the Mainland. But then the governor reneged on his promise, but by then it was too late to stop the trip so I went ahead with it anyway. Thus I faced two weeks of sitting in my house when I returned to Kaua‘i.
This would have been bearable if there were some sort of scientific rationale for it all other than a whim of the governor. We’ve seen corona cases on O‘ahu go up and up recently even with a quarantine. Lock downs and quarantines really don’t work as we’ve seen demonstrated in other areas where they are attempted. The more onerous they are the more cheating we see. Look at all the stories in the paper about people arrested for violating the terms of the quarantine. You gotta figure that for every person arrested there were another dozen never caught. During the entire time I was in quarantine only twice did anyone come by to see if I was still at home. It would have been easy to slip away from time to time if I were a mind too. After all there’s not enough National Guard and police to babysit all people for two weeks who come to Hawai‘i.
Wouldn’t it be far better to test everyone flying into the state than attempt quarantines and just hope everyone is compliant. I don’t know about you, but I’d feel far safer if a planeload of people had all tested negative before arrival than just hoping that no one on that plane had COVID and we didn’t know about it. Who’s to say that that one infected passenger might be the very one who defies the quarantine and spreads the virus around. I’d also feel much safer were I sitting on that plane for six hours knowing that none of my fellow passengers were infected.
Look also at how this quarantine is destroying our economy. Very few tourists are going to come here if two weeks of their vacation is spent trapped in their hotel— even if that were changed to a “bubble” forcing them to remain on the hotel grounds. There have been just under 50 deaths in the entire state from the corona virus since this all began, but how many lives have been destroyed by our bleak economy, how many suicide deaths have there been. The quarantine is not without cost in lives and dollars. It is time to return to the plan as promised, testing people coming here in advance, and ending the quarantine not next month, not next week, but now immediately.
•••
CDR Ken Fasig USN (ret.) is a resident of Kalaheo
Owning a home in Princeville that we have not been able to use since March, although paying property taxes, my husband and I have been saying the same thing for six months. Why is it not possible for a state to get testing put into place, when universities can? The Governor should be fired for incompetence, letting the beautiful state and people of Hawaii languish for so long, with a crazy 14 day quarantine. Mandatory testing needs to happen ASAP!
Sir,
I couldn’t agree more. We are destroying lives in all the economic spectrums of the state. We’re treating our citizens as if they lived in Cuba, standing in line waiting for food. I hope we all wake up to what we’ve done to our beautiful islands!
I agree completely. What good is a 14 day quarantine if there is anyone on your flight allowed to board without a negative COVID19 test taken before they board their aircraft.
If the airlines want to get people back on their planes, a rapid test prior to boarding would do it. 14 dat quarantines in theory work to avoid testing everyone, but you can’t avoid testing everyone on a flight after they’ve arrived. You must test everyone before they leave. Period.
Being a Kauai home owner and resident half the year, I agree with the comment to impose testing within 72 hours of arrival on the island. It is the most scientific approach that is safe and reasonable.
What I don’t understand is why the last date was pushed out because the Gov and local mayors said many testing centers on the mainland could not return results in 72 hours so they could not launch the program…That’s not their responsibility to manage! My sons live in SF and have been tested multiple times, easy, free, from authorized healthcare facility (like UCSF, etc) and results in less than 48 hours. So, launch it, you must have a test that is negative within 72 hours of flight, temperature checks, and if you can’t get one then that’s your problem. When you arrive on island, masks, wash hands and social distancing. This would at least allow for a trickle in of people who can start visiting (and in mine and other folks cases return to their second homes ) and contributing to the economy!!! Also, the ‘bubble resort’ idea is utterly ridiculous. When people do start returning, many will prefer the privacy and space private homes and condo’s provide and they can take meals in, etc.
100% Agree. This is dry run for a much more aggressive health scare that will eliminate what is left of our freedoms and subjugate the public to mandatory surveillance and injections. Stand up now or it’s over.
I agree. Why not do like Dubai and require a negative Covid test certificate within 92 hours of arrival on the Island. No quarantine, no police surveillance, safe tourism returned. I’m so anxious to visit the Island I love (from California) and would gladly take a test before I arrive.
Spoken like a hardcore, hungry Trumpaloid who’d rather kill people than lose a dime.
Spoken like a Trust Fund Baby or Career Welfare recipient. Risks are part of every day life.
God help us if there is a real virus that kills 20% of the population. .01% mortality rate world wide. Yes, let’s stay home and watch NEFLIX with the Government checks and pass the bill on to the next generation, our children, our grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Brilliant!!! SMH.
If we had a competent National Government that could test all airline passengers and guarantee the results, then I would agree. The test would have to be foolproof, and there could be no asymptomatic passengers who tested negative but were actually carrying the virus. I believe we have the money and the technology to accomplish this goal, but, for whatever reason, this administration doesn’t see the need to do this Nationwide. Since airline travel falls within Federal jurisdiction, it’s the Feds who need to step up.
Aloha Ken, great article you wrote, mahalo.
However some of us think the testing should be for the antibodies that are produced naturally in response to exposure / infection by the Covid19 virus, or any other virus.
A zero or mild symptoms case that tests positive for covid19 antibodies, tells us that that person has a functionally active healthy immune system, and has the infectious virus under control, and that person should be past the condition of contaminating others, since the viruses in their body should be already rendered inactive, or too few to effectively infect others.
Just checking for the virus does not give us a complete picture of the status of the person infected, if they are found to be positive.
A virus only test does not tell us if the person is infectious or non-infectious.
Apparently when we read about another “spike” of 200 positive tests, if those people have no symptoms or only mild symptoms, then that is good news because that would mean they have developed natural inborn immunity or are in the process of developing natural immunity. And are contributing to herd immunity.
Therefore testing positive for either the virus or the antibodies is always a good sign or indication that people’s immune systems are functioning and probably healthy. This means for a population at large that we are closer to herd immunity where the virus has less and less people to infect and the virus has less chance to survive in our environment, causing the virus in the community to fade away not finding any or enough un-infective human bodies to live in, because the human mass, or herd, of people will have developed natural immunity and have enough abundance of natural antibodies to disable any future covid19 virus entering their body.
The human, and indeed the entire vertebrate species, having immune systems effectively defeating viruses for 550 million years, develops natural immunity that lasts for a lifetime against whatever exact strain of virus it is confronted with by way of infection.
Dropping the masks and ending social distancing, business lockdowns, and quarantines speeds up the process of herd exposure, herd infection, herd immune response, herd development of adequate and amount of natural antibodies, and nullification of the viruses, multiplied by the needed amount of people who develop their own immunity, equals herd immunity and goodbye to this particular strain of virus.
No worry nature will make another virus and healthy people will again bring us to herd immunity, naturally and effectively.
However, if you are at risk, you better get UN-risked and pronto.
You are at extra risk if you burden your immune system, you burden your immune when you eat junk food, fast food, food with chemicals, Ag poisons, sugars, synthetic vitamins, colors, flavors, and aromas, along with alcohol, tobacco, street drugs, over the counter drugs, and prescription drugs; or have, or be in any Stage of chronic degenerative end of life diseases.
And when you are at high risk, whether a mosquito comes along and bites you, or a virus infects you, and you die, some government officials or ignorant medical authority, or vaccine salesperson will say the mosquito or the virus killed you, totally ignoring the multiple end of life diseases and end of life toxic prescription drugs you are taking that are killing people everyday, having robbed them of optimal Health and active longevity of life.
It is abject assininity to think that someone with multiple pre-existing diseases and daily use of toxic drug therapies and who dies, and then some appointed authorities proclaim the virus was the sole cause of their death is not only ridiculous in the face of people are dying every day from the same singular or multiple end of life chronic diseases and their daily taking of medically obligatory end of life prescription drugs, compounded by more side effects and use of more toxic prescription drugs.
Multiply that by billions of people on earth who have no education about their bodies and you have a pandemic of fear, and pandemonium of what to do to weather the annual seasonal storm of viruses as they oscillate between the winters of the northern and southern hemispheres, naturally seeking the cold they survive in and living out their natural lives by adapting to their own environmental needs by mutating into different strains of same virus as science has shown they do. Thus this virus is labeled with a “19” indicating the year it made itself known, 2019. If this virus was laboratory created it sure was irresponsible scientists who brought it about considering the harm it is doing the human population on earth.
It seems satanic for any virus lab to have a need to study some cave living bat virus from some remote mountains of Asia, unless they were on a devilish mission. Banish those people to Mars.
All of the above artificial and junk foods listed above, burden the immune system, because while your immune system is literally battling junk food, etc., it cannot handle all the listed above, and other burdens, and so the virus gets a foot hold in your body and replicates itself causing your immune system to need to over react in performing the healing process, whose signs and symptoms manifest as what we call the flu.
The severe flu symptoms occur because your immune system is already overwhelmed by what we put in our body, and the immune system was not able, it was too busy, to nullify the virus in its early stage of infection. The virus got a foot hold inside your body and it became more difficult to remove, and the greater the flu symptoms are as the immune system does its best to nullify the virus. The flu is the body trying to get well. But can it kill you in its over reaction, apparently so.
Don’t burden your immune system. Be nice to your immune system it will always have plenty work to do with other typical invasive bacteria and virus and other infectious microbes.
Super markets, grocery, and convenience stores are snack stores with little nutrition and too much non-nutritious items that burden, well drain so to speak, the immune system, leaving people with less than adequate antibody production and little to negligible immunity.
Get smart eat no food that burdens the immune system, and naturally develop immunity in yourself, repeatedly as needed, throughout life.
If you take good care of yourself you will have natural immunity, and not need to risk taking a manmade laboratory toxic vaccine, that will have little benefit against the current ever changing virus. The vaccine itself burdens the natural immune system, the vaccine is just as foreign to your body as the virus, the immune system needs to rid your body of both.
Stay safe follow the natural path.
Prevention of disease requires no cure.
Yes, do not eat foods that have chemicals or sugars in them. And by all means avoid synthetic vitamins. Unless you understand a minimal bit of scientific reality. All matter is composed of chemicals. For example, water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen chemical atoms.maybe you once heard about this. Sugars are comprised of the chemical elements snosnowcarbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and are very broadly naturally occurring in all living organisms. Aunty would not have us drink water or eat a mango. C’mon get real , get educated.
Aloha Loladog, the immune system is vastly more precise in sorting out antigens when they enter the portals to our bodies. A few molecular configurations you profer in your comment are a trifle compared to the billions if not trillions of molecular configurations that our immune systems, as gate keepers to our health must monitor 24/7/365, nano second by mano second.
550 million years of vertebrate immune systems sorting out the good from the bad entering our collective bodies from the external environment, has the vertebrate chain of vertebrate species quite adept at allowing the good cells and in, while attacking the unwanted unnecessary toxic poisonous antigens.
Reminds of the North Shore protesters repelling the new perceived antigenic arrivals of the Love has Won cult. Get them out now is what the immune system coordinated by the nervous system does to antigenic cells and molecules that enter the body…uninvited. Apparently North Shore neighbors are driven by similar but different impulsive behavior.
No worries, you can rely on the immune system just like sun and rain, all 3 are natural; just don’t block them with burdens on their functionality.
I wholeheartedly agree, Gov. Ige is putting his politics ahead of science and truth.
Patrick Flores, Wailua Houselots.
There have been 0 deaths on Kaua’i. So far I’d say the quarantine is working. You make a good case for requiring testing in addition to the quarantine.
I’m sorry to hear your quarantine was annoying for you, maybe next time think more carefully about leaving your home for the mainland.
As a retired Navy officer I’d like to think you’re made of stronger stuff and that spending two weeks in your nice house in paradise isn’t enough to get you down.
Just imagine what it would have been like if you were actually in prison, or a prisoner of war, or locked in the brig at Great Lakes Navel Base.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were local homeless people who would gladly trade places with you, staying in your estate for two weeks while you camp out at a beach park or hidden away in some random patch of trees somewhere.
Is complaining about minor inconveniences the right way, or the wrong way, or the ‘Navy way’?
Naval base >.<
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR INPUT/COMMENT. I couldn’t agree more with everything you said. I also live on Kauai and have had a trip planned to visit family on the mainland for quite some time. I considered myself to postpone but there were so many people looking forward to my visit why should I rearrange all my travel and disappoint my family and friends. Your logic is so so true about the quarantine, testing, etc. I could say more but will not let my political or opinion shine…I am on the mainland currently and was supposed to come back the 3rd week of August. I have moved my return up to October 1st hoping the travel will resume with testing instead of quarantine. Time will tell but not holding my breath. Sometimes I feel that the people in charge would rather there not be travel or tourism which is so sad since our economy depends so much on travel and tourism. Just look at all these poor small businesses and local people that are still hurting and suffering from the decisions being made by those people in charge. They will still have a paycheck whether we open up to visitors and tourism but our poor small businesses and local people that rely on this industry will continue to suffer.
I’m guessing by your letter you don’t follow the news much. The pre-testing program was to commence on Aug. 1st, however cases spiked on the Mainland in July and the largest supplier of reagents cut Hawai’i back by 50% because of the immense need over there. Labs have been overwhelmed in many States and cannot return results in a timely manner, some taking up to 10 days, which negates the results. Hawai’i just had 70,000 test kits sent down to do rapid testing this week. The H3 is closed today and Thursday to try and accomplish this. O’ahu hospitals and staff are overwhelmed; more RNs arrived on Friday, and yesterday to help with the overload.
Yes, in a perfect world it would be great to pre-test everyone so we could get back to a somewhat normal life here in Hawai’i, but it’s simply not feasible at the moment. If we had proper leadership in the WH they would have requested back in March that manufacturers work around the clock to produce ample test kits, and require everyone Nationwide to wear a mask in an effort to control the spread of COVID, rather than expect this virus to magically disappear on it’s own = epic fail.
Well said. Couldn’t agree more. Without national leadership, we are destined to see this pandemic drag on for another year at least. Quit worrying about getting re-elected and get to work on a National plan to beat this thing!
First sensible article I’ve read all week.
How can you say it is not working, the difference is the people of Kauai, they take it serious and the people on Oahu do not. The proof is in the numbers.
KEN YOU ARE EXACTY RIGHT !!!!!! THIS FACT FREE IDIOTIC IGNORANT NON PLAN IS OBVIOUSLY BASED ON THE LAZY DAYDREAMS OF LITTLE WOULD BE PROCLAMATION FANTASIES !! THERE ARE A MULTITUDE OF TESTS AVAILABLE BOTH SWABS THAT RETURN LAB RESULTS AND 5 MININUTE TESTS THAT CAN BE A GATEWAY UPON ENTRY THAT ONLY COST F…I…..V…E DOLLARS !!! COMON PEOPLE DO NOT TOLERATE THESE C..L..O..W..N BUREAUCREATS ANYMORE !!! THANK YOU K..E…N !!!!!!
CDR…what’s even more disturbing is the utter futility of ALL lock downs and quarantines in the face of the latest from the CDC:
“GreenMedInfo and GatewayPundit are reporting the CDC has quietly revised its COVID US death numbers. Instead of 161,000 deaths, the actual number is less than 10,000, in the category of “died from the virus and no other causes.”
GreenMedInfo: “The implications of this are jaw-dropping, confirming what so many of us have been saying for months, namely, the death stats have been overinflated, likely by several orders of magnitude. The CDC surreptitiously updated their COVID death statistics on August 26th, with astounding implications, namely, less than 10k of the 161k people the CDC has said ‘died from COVID’ were classified as having been killed by COVID-19 alone. The rest had 2-3 additional causes of death, the vast majority of which were chronic diseases indicative of poor health which long pre-existed this event. Sources:”
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/#Comorbidities
data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Conditions-contributing-to-deaths-involving-corona/hk9y-quqm
There you have it. This whole thing has been a fraud and done nothing except scare people and ruined many businesses and lives. An utter disgrace and evidence of the fact that we cannot believe the political hacks with dark agendas. Especially the dull ones like Ige and Kawakami.
Colin McCleod
What are “several orders of magnitude”? Is that more than one order of magnitude, inasmuch as several is more than one or a few? What is an order of magnitude?
Loladog, it usually means the difference between 1 bark and 10 barks…or 1 treat and 10 treats!
Ken,
First, Thank You for your service! Secondly, you sure would think it would be that easy for the Hawaii government to come up with a plan by now. Instead, and unfortunately for the Hawaiians, your state is basically back to starting over. I suspect the way things are going, it will be at least 6-8 months before tourists start to trickle back to Hawaii. I truly feel so sorry for the citizens of the islands as they try and make ends meet.
Big Mahalos to both Ken and Aunty Body (cute name!) – great letters! Well explained, factual an d non emotional. Neither of you were disrespectful to the people who are living in the bubble of fear that had been propagated by the media, and stoked by our government leaders. I must urge those (paradise lost and Jake) to do more research. Those that take the time to move away from mainstream media and look at the unvarnished facts from the CDC and WHO can do the math and easily determine that this virus actually has a much lower death risk than what was predicted. As mentioned, the CDC has revised their statistics to reflect that NINETY FOUR PERCENT of the deaths reported have been caused by Covid actually had other contributing causes. Everything comes down to immune function. A knowledgeable person would also recognize that all of those medications we see advertised on tv every night also suppress immune function. Understanding the huge role that immune function plays we would be wise to do everything we can to boost our health levels. Another important recognition is the worthlessness of cloth masks against covid. Call your doctor – ask anyone at a hospital- none of these masks are Covid rated. Why are we told to wear them??
In summary, thank you again Ken and Aunty Body. Keep calling people to evaluate the non sensical mandates and Regulations that we have been forced to adhere to. Let’s ask our Governor and Mayor to please develop logical and effective ways to open our island to visitors, allow our citizens to resume their work and allow children to get back to school. Please stop directing mandates from the position of fear, and follow the true science now available with the experience and statistics gathered.
I will pick a full stomach and sick with a 1% chance of dying over healthy and starving. If you are for the quarantine, no grumble when you are in the bread line. If you aren’t in the breadline now, just give it some more time.
What if it were around 6%, in general? Perhaps higher if you have certain pre-existing conditions?
I’m afraid that Governor Ige is playing politics and doing what Nancy Pelosi tells him to do.Hawaii should emulate the testing program used by the State of Alaska. You must have a test 72 hours before you you depart for Alaska. Oil field workers that I know work 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off. They fly to Alaska every two weeks. Returning residents and tourists must do the same thing. This testing works. Hawaii could do the same thing and improve it’s economy and the lives of it’s workers.
Aloha Colin, mahalo for the there’s been people commenting in the Garden Island for months on this fact of what people are really dying of, which has always been clearly end of life diseases being drugged with prescription drugs for decades for each patient ignorantly accepting disease care over Health Care.
This is typical worldwide disease care for the last several (de)generations:
Doctor says,
Mr. Jones you have High Blood Pressure.
Mr. Jones says, Save me!
Doctor says, Here take take these pills, for the rest of your life, but be prepared for side effects, like Type I diabetes, that you’ll need to take other pills or injections for the rest of your life.
Mr. Jones says, Thank you doctor, you saved my life (but shortened it by a few decades).
Now this is Health Care, the New Normal thinking approach:
Mrs. Smith says to the doctor about prescription drugs,
Doctor I don’t want your stinking drugs, I want to know the Cause, Avoidance, and Prevention of my problem. What do I do to change my diet and lifestyle?
Mrs. Smith goes to see the new normal grammar school Health Teacher, Ms. Menehune.
Health Teacher says to Mrs. Smith,
Do the acronym SWARE every day: Sun, Water, Air, Rest, Exercise
And eat only live Natural Food, unprocessed (factory made) with no additives like the many chemicals, sugar, preservatives, colors, flavors, aromas, the Agriculture poisons, synthetic worthless vitamins, oil based carcinogenic petrochemicals; and outside of crisis emergency or intractable pain, avoid drugs; as well smoke nothing, and ditch alcohol; all this for a Healthy active optimal life longevity, live to know and love your great grandchildren.
If you do all recommendations for Health, your Health will greatly improve and you can fine tune your Health to an even greater experience. Go for it, you’ll lose unwanted weight too.
Apparently “ret” means you never have to follow orders again without whining.