HONOLULU – Coronavirus weary residents and struggling business owners in Hawaii will be watching closely as tourists begin to return to the islands on Thursday without being required to self-quarantine upon arrival.A new pre-travel testing program will allow visitors who test negative for COVID-19 to come to Hawaii and avoid the two weeks of mandatory quarantine — a measure that's been in place for all arriving passengers for most of the year.
The state-run testing program is an effort to stem the devastating downturn the pandemic has had on Hawaii’s tourism-based economy.
However, gaps in the pre-travel testing program coupled with increasing cases of COVID-19 across the U.S. and the world have raised questions about whether Hawaii is.