Ronald Kouchi, President of the Hawaii State Senate, and Scott Saiki, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and every State Senator and Representative,  signed a joint letter to Governor Ige on Sunday, March 22, asking Ige to issue a shelter-in-place order for residents, as has been done in New York, California, and Illinois and to some degree in other states and communities.   The letter asks the Governor to take every preventative action possible to keep this from escalating into a full-blown public health crisis.

Kirk Caldwell, Mayor of the City and County of Honolulu and Michael Victorino, Mayor of Maui County, have already issued “stay at home, work at home” orders for their counties.

The letter to the Governor notes that the state legislators asked the Governor on Mar. 19 and 20 for more stringent action, and that each county is following a different path.   The letter is printed below in its entirety.

 

HAWAII STATE LEGISLATURE
STATE CAPITOL
415 SOUTH BERETANIA STREET
HONOLULU, HAWAII 96813

March 22, 2020

The Honorable David Ige
Executive Chambers

Dear Governor Ige:

Senate President Ronald D. Kouchi and House Speaker Scott K. Saiki sent you letters on March 19 and 20, 2020, asking you to take aggressive action to contain COVID-19. We are extremely disappointed that you and your administration continue to fail to realize the gravity of the situation Hawaii faces and have not led our state with one decisive voice.

The statement you made at your press conference on March 21 calling for the quarantine of arriving persons entering the State completely contradicts the Department of Health’s (DOH) statement: “There are residents of Hawaii who believe the COVID-19 positive cases here are all visitors to the state, and unfortunately, there is stigma developing against visitors in Hawaii. I am asking the media to help the public understand that of the 37 positive test results to date, 32 of them are the result of traveling residents. The majority of cases are residents who returned home after traveling.”

The underlying fact is that all the early COVID-19 cases came from travel related circumstances and it is because of this unimpeded travel that community spread is occurring. Your March 21 call for quarantine of all arriving persons entering the State should have been instituted earlier and at this point in time, falls short of what is needed to comprehensively address this pandemic and will jeopardize the health and well-being of the residents and the economy of Hawaii as community spread is here. The only question is the extent and harm the spread will cause.

The only way to contain community spread of the virus is to impose a shelter-in-place directive upon all persons in Hawaii. Exceptions can be made for the continuity of essential services such as food (including food transportation, hubs, and farmers’ markets), medical, water, communications, gasoline, cargo, financial transactions, public safety, and federal critical infrastructure sectors.

This is a medical crisis and it calls on all of us to heed the advice of the medical community. Hundreds of local healthcare providers have already signed a letter pleading that you take such extreme measures, e.g., closure of non-essential businesses. Thousands of residents have signed on-line petitions asking you to mandate all the people in Hawaii to shelter in place. The four county councils have also demanded stronger action to protect their islands.

Jurisdictions and nations that have not implemented severe restrictions have seen staggering and uncontrollable infection rates. Our kupuna and frontline medical workers are also at higher risk. Their exposure, coupled with a lack of beds and ventilators, should be reason enough to take decisive action to prevent community spread and to prevent limited medical resources to be redirected from other daily medical emergencies that residents will encounter.

The Administration’s attempt to quarantine arriving passengers will only be effective if coupled with an aggressive shelter-in-place protocol for all residents. General Hara admitted at the March 21 press conference that a quarantining process will be difficult to enforce. General Hara’s statement further underscores the need for a directed shelter-in-place order for all residents in conjunction with quarantining of arriving passengers.

The DOH has already publicly stated that community spread is here. Your Administration lacks clear information and consistent testing protocols that leads to confusion and chaos amongst medical professionals. Your statement that there is no large community spread can only be made if your administration has tested every individual who requested testing and as DOH has repeatedly stated, we lack the resources to do that. While there have been some large group screenings, many residents who requested testing were refused and told to self-quarantine until symptoms arise, then and only then to inform their personal physician or urgent care. That means that at this time, we do not know whether there is a large community spread, and the Administration’s refusal to take appropriate further aggressive action until we see widespread community outbreak is irresponsible.

The Administration’s attempt to institute a voluntary shelter-in-place approach is not working. This has resulted in various counties using different approaches, i.e., restaurant restrictions on Oahu and Maui, curfew on Kauai, and none on the Big Island. Also, responsible citizens have taken steps to shut down their places of work while others have not. Lack of consistency and uniformity will not contain the virus but result in overtaxing the medical professionals and bring uncertainty to when the voluntary shelter-in-place will end. This will result in delay in any recovery attempt.

Governor, please take every preventative action possible to keep this from escalating into a full-blown public health crisis

Sincerely,

THE SENATE
RONALD D. KOUCHI
President of the Senate
ROSALYN H. BAKER
District 6
STANLEY CHANG
District 9
DONOVAN M. DELA CRUZ
District 22
J. KALANI ENGLISH
District 7
KURT FEVELLA
District 19
MIKE GABBARD
District 20
BREENE HARIMOTO
District 16
LES IHARA, JR.
District 10
LORRAINE R. INOUYE
District 4
KAIALI’I KAHELE
District 1
DRU MAMO KANUHA
District 3
GILBERT KEITH-AGARAN
District 5

 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SCOTT K. SAIKI
Speaker of the House
HENRY J.C. AQUINO
District 38
DELLA AU BELATTI
District 24
TOM BROWER
District 22
RIDA CABANILLA ARAKAWA
District 41
ROMY M. CACHOLA
District 30
RICHARD P. CREAGAN
District 5
TY J.K. CULLEN
District 39
STACELYNN K.M. ELI
District 43
CEDRIC ASUEGA GATES
District 44
MARK J. HASHEM
District 18
TROY N. HASHIMOTO
District 8
DANIEL HOLT
District 29

JARRETT KEOHOKALOLE
District 24
MICHELLE N. KIDANI
District 18
DONNA MERCADO KIM
District 14
SHARON Y. MORIWAKI
District 12
CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA
District 17
KARL RHOADS
District 13
GIL RIVIERE
District 23
RUSSELL E. RUDERMAN
District 2
MAILE SHIMABUKURO
District 21
BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI
District 11
LAURA H. THIELEN
District 25
GLENN WAKAI
District 15
LINDA ICHIYAMA
District 32
AARON LING JOHANSON
District 31
LISA KITAGAWA
District 48
DALE T. KOBAYASHI
District 23
BERTRAND KOBAYASHI
District 19
CHRIS LEE
District 51
NICOLE E. LOWEN
District 6
SYLVIA LUKE
District 25
SCOT Z. MATAYOSHI
District 49
LAUREN MATSUMOTO
District 45
BOB McDERMOTT
District 40
ANGUS L.K. McKELVEY
District 10
JOHN M. MIZUNO
District 28
DEE MORIKAWA
District 16
Honorable David Y. Ige
March 22, 2020
NADINE K. NAKAMURA
District 14
MARK M. NAKASHIMA
District 1
SCOTT Y. NISHIMOTO
District 21
TAKASHI OHNO
District 27
VAL OKIMOTO
District 36
RICHARD H.K. ONISHI
District 3
AMY A. PERRUSO
District 46
SEAN QUINLAN
District 47
JOY A. SAN BUENAVENTURA
District 4
DAVID A. TARNAS
District 7
CYNTHIA THIELEN
District 50
CHRIS TODD
District 2
TINA WILDBERGER
District 11
JUSTIN H. WOODSON
District 9
RYAN I. YAMANE
District 37
KYLE T. YAMASHITA
District 12