RI Reopening: Travel Restrictions Set For Those Coming To State

PROVIDENCE, RI — Rhode Island is open for visitors this summer.

There will be restrictions, however, for those coming into the state from areas experiencing a surge in positive coronavirus tests.

"To be clear, I want people come here," Gov. Gina Raimondo said during her Monday news conference announcing that RI will enter phase 3 of its reopening. "I want people to come, spend money in our restaurants, and enjoy our beaches, as long as they follow our rules. Having said that, we have to protect (our residents). We want to support hotels and restaurants. But we also don't want an outbreak."

Raimondo said that as of Tuesday that those coming to the state from states with a 5 percent or higher positive rate of coronavirus testing must either quarantine for 14 days, or can attest to a negative test from within the previous 72 hours.

She said the same rule will apply for RI residents who are coming back to RI from those states considered "hot spots" across the country — they must either quarantine for 14 days, or get tested and monitor themselves for symptoms if the test is negative.

"We know the data is so clear on this that outbreaks all around the world often start from one person traveling to someplace," Raimondo said.

She said the list of states that exceed the 5 percent threshold includes 23 states as of Monday based on the data from Johns Hopkins University that RI will use to determine quarantine visiting states. She said those states are likely to change through the summer and will be updated on a weekly basis.

"This is going to be a hard thing to enforce," she allowed. "I will be the first to admit it."

She said the state will be relying on hotels, rental agencies, employers for business travel and the general honor system to enforce much of the travel restrictions, which will not include the types of State Police road blocks used in April.

"We are not going to be stopping people with out-of-state plates," she said. "We're not going to be stopping people in rest stops."

She said the endgame is the hope that RI becomes a state where people want to travel to because it will be known as a safe place to do so.

"I think it could be a selling point for Rhode Island," she concluded. "Come here and safely vacation. Come here, get yourself tested, and know that this is a place with a 2, 3, 4 percent test-positive rate. Not Texas, where it's 14 percent."

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