NY Discourages Travel To, From PA Due To Rise In COVID

PENNSYLVANIA — Pennsylvania meets the criteria to be on New York's travel advisory list, but Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said Tuesday there was no practical way to implement a quarantine due to the "interconnected nature of the region."

In addition, New Jersey and Connecticut now meet the criteria to be on New York's travel advisory list due to the rise in coronavirus cases. But "given the interconnected nature of the region and mode of transport between us, a quarantine on these states is not practically viable," Gov. Cuomo said. Rather, the governor is urging against non-essential travel.

Typically, New York's advisory requires individuals who have traveled to the state from areas with significant community spread to quarantine for 14 days.

In New York, a quarantine applies to any person arriving from an area with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a seven-day rolling average or an area with a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a seven-day rolling average.

Cuomo called it a "bizarre outcome, considering New York once had the highest infection rate."
He noted there was "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."

He said it implementing such a quarantine "would have a disastrous effect on the economy."
Despite not implementing a quarantine, New York State "highly discourages, to the extent practical, non-essential travel to and from these states while they meet the travel advisory criteria."

Pennsylvania has its own travel advisory list that requires residents returning from 25 states to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.