Broome County Executive Jason Garnar says the county will do all it can to enforce a new quarantine on visitors arriving from COVID-19 hot spot states.

While states like Florida raised eyebrows during the height of the coronavirus pandemic in New York in April by requiring visitors from the Empire State to quarantine for 14 days, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey are now returning the favor, issuing a travel advisory calling for people coming from virus hot-spot states to quarantine.

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Governor Andrew Cuomo says New York had the highest rate of coronavirus infections because of international and cross-state travel over the winter bringing in the illness.  He says residents worked hard over the past more than 100 days to become the state with the lowest number of infections.  The Democrat says he doesn’t want travel to again spike the numbers due to people from high-infection regions coming to New York and again spreading the virus.

The “travel advisory” that went into affects at midnight  specifies states that have an infection rate of ten per 100,000 people on a 7 day rolling average, or 10 percent, to be included.  The two-week quarantine will last two weeks from the time of last contact within the identified state.

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June 24, those states are identified as Florida, Utah, Arizona, Arkansas, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina Texas and Washington but Cuomo says that could change with the infection rates.

On local levels, officials are grappling with enforcement, wondering if travelers on flights from the identified states would automatically have to quarantine, even if they are returning from a business trip, if hotels would be asked to track guests checking in and how to determine if someone from a hot-spot state is just passing through.

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Officials in areas with big tourist draws like Niagara Falls, Cooperstown, Watkins Glen and New York City fear another big economic hit even as businesses are slowly being allowed to reopen if interstate and international visitors are discouraged.

 Broome County was the only location in New York State to shut out potential infectious people during the height of the pandemic.  Garnar issued an order asking commercial bus companies: Greyhound and Coach USA to stop service to the Greater Binghamton Intermodal Bus Terminal and to not drop off passengers in the county.

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