Both Connecticut and New Jersey appear to have qualified for their own travel restrictions that require out-of-state travelers to self-quarantine for two weeks, according to a CNN review of Census Bureau population estimates and case counts on the states’ respective Covid-19 data dashboards.
First, some background: On June 24, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut issued a joint travel advisory requiring a mandatory 14-day quarantine for residents arriving from states with either a seven-day average percent positivity greater than 10% or a seven-day average daily case count higher than 10 per 100k residents, or .01%.
Using the most recent Census Bureau population estimates of 3.56 million and 8.88 million for Connecticut and New Jersey respectively, both states appear to have just barely surpassed the latter threshold this month:
- From Oct. 9 through Oct. 15, Connecticut’s seven-day average of cases stood at 366.43 cases.
- New Jersey’s daily average currently stands at 922.86 cases from Oct. 12 through noon Sunday.
That amounts to just above .01% of each state’s respective population.
The 1,282 new cases the New Jersey Department of Health reported Sunday afternoon pushed the state back over the edge of the .01% threshold. It had first crossed the mark for the period Oct. 8 through Oct. 14.
On Oct. 8, the health department had reported 1,301 cases, the largest daily increase since late May. Governor Phil Murphy called it a “sobering number” at the time.
The Connecticut Department for Public Health has not yet updated its dashboard with case tallies for Friday through this weekend.
New York, meanwhile, has thus far steered clear of meeting the criteria for the tri-state travel advisory. It currently has a seven-day average percent positivity of 1% and seven-day average of 1,427.86 cases. Using the Census Bureau’s population estimate of 19.45 million, the seven-day average amounts to .0073%, below the threshold of 10 cases per 100k residents, or .01%.
So what happens now? Neither the office of Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont nor the Connecticut Department of Public Health immediately responded to CNN’s requests for comment on whether state officials will revise the tri-state travel advisory this week.
During a Covid-19 news briefing Thursday, Gov. Lamont said he would consider revising the criteria for the travel rules.
A spokesperson for New Jersey Governor Murphy declined to comment further beyond his comments Thursday during a Covid-19 press conference.
“We’re already on other states’ lists. Our job is to not complain about being on those lists but to do everything we can to break the back of the numbers and get it into shape, and that’s what we’ll continue to focus on,” Murphy said, adding that it’s best to avoid interstate travel in general during the pandemic.
A spokesperson for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo also did not immediately respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
There are currently 38 states on the tri-state travel advisory list as of Oct. 13. State officials are slated to update it every Tuesday.
NOTE: These numbers were released by the states and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.