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Covid-19: NY, NJ, CT May Ask Visitors From States With High Infection Rates To Quarantine

With New York continuing to lead the nation in its recovery from novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his tristate counterparts are mulling mandatory two-week quarantines for visitors from some state with high infection rates.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo cast the blame for the COVID-19 crisis on the federal government.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo cast the blame for the COVID-19 crisis on the federal government.

Photo Credit: ny.gov

Those states would likely include Florida, Texas, Arizona, South Carolina and Oklahoma.

In an ironic twist, at the start of the pandemic in March, Florida instituted two-week quarantines for visitors from New York.

"If you went to Florida, you had to quarantine for two weeks because they were afraid that New Yorkers were bringing the virus to their state," Cuomo said. "You want to talk about a full 180. Fast forward a 100 days, now we're afraid they're bringing the virus to our state.”

During an appearance on CNN’s Newsroom with Jim Sciutto and Poppy Harlow on Monday, June 22, Cuomo recalled how President Trump also mulled a shutdown of out-of-state travel by New York residents in March.

“New York had the highest infection rate and all these other states were saying, ‘Well, we're going to blockade New York,’ " Cuomo said. “The president was talking about blockading New York. You would have seen a civil war.

"We now have the lowest infection rate, and I'm getting calls all day long, people from Florida, Texas, saying we want to be in New York because we're afraid to be in Texas and Florida,” Cuomo added. “That could actually increase our transmission rate so I'm talking to my neighbors, Gov. (Phil) Murphy in New Jersey, Gov. (Ned) Lamont in Connecticut, about what we do about it.

Cuomo continued: “I wouldn't target a specific state, but we know the transmission rate in every state in the United States.

"It's a published piece of data. I would consider states with the highest transmission rate that if somebody comes from that state to New York there's a period of quarantine where they quarantine themselves to make sure they are not spreading it.”

In a separate interview with MSNBC, Cuomo added “The virus is up and more people are getting sick and now our fear in New York are those people are going to travel to New York and they could bring the virus with them,” referencing Florida’s rise in COVID-19 cases.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took a shot at Cuomo over the weekend, citing the number of deaths in New York nursing homes during the pandemic.

“I would just ask if that’s done, just please do not quarantine any Floridians in the nursing homes in New York,” DeSantis said.

The number of positive COVID-19 cases in Florida has dropped to the hundreds, while Florida has seen a spike into the thousands of new cases daily.

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