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The state is working on verifying vaccination records of incoming tourists but likely won’t be able to verify all travelers’ records by July 8, when travel and gathering restrictions are scheduled to ease for fully vaccinated travelers, Gov. David Ige said Friday.
Even if the state does
not average a 60% full vaccination rate by July 8, as hoped, Ige still wants the plans he announced Thursday to proceed so employers and employees can prepare for an expected bounce in business and visitors can make arrangements, Ige told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Spotlight Hawaii livestream Friday.
Businesses, in particular, needed a two-week heads-up because “they need to plan, they need to adjust work schedules and a whole bunch of other things,” Ige said.
In the meantime, Ige said discussions continue on ways to help stimulate business, including possibly
easing social distance requirements in restaurants to increase seating capacity.
Restaurant owners say that it’s difficult to survive with capacity limits, but Ige said COVID-19 continues to spread in restaurants.
The next goal would be to reach a fully vaccinated rate of 70% across the state to see a near-total easing of COVID-19 restrictions. But hurdles remain.
The pace of vaccinations has dropped from an average of 72,000 per week in May to about 35,000 to 36,000 per week in the first weeks of June, he said.
He continued to urge unvaccinated people to get any concerns addressed, especially as new COVID-19 variants are proving deadlier and easier to transmit, Ige said.
Ige and all four county mayors are unified in plans to significantly ease COVID-
19 restrictions beginning July 8 that would allow:
>> Fully vaccinated U.S. travelers flying domestically — including island residents returning home — to bypass Hawaii’s quarantine and pre-travel restrictions, as long as they upload their vaccination records to the state’s Safe Travels website and
arrive with a hard copy of their vaccination records.
>> The number of people attending social gatherings to increase to 25 people from the current level of 10, and the size of outdoor gatherings to increase to 75 people from 25.
>> Restaurants to increase their seating capacities to 75% of their maximum allowed capacity, as long as they seat no more than
25 customers indoors and 75 outdoors.
Masks will continue to be required indoors until Hawaii reaches a 70% vaccination rate.
Asked about plans to continue weekly “plus up” unemployment payments of an additional $300, Ige said many people remain unemployed and rely on the additional benefit.
“We know that for those hardest-hit, it has made a significant difference in their quality of life,” Ige said. “We’ve set up processes so that if employers are having difficulties hiring people and if they’re making job offers that are being declined — especially to those who are on unemployment — we are following up and trying to get people back to work.
“We continue to work with the businesses to see if we can close the gap and make sure that every business can hire and offer jobs to those who are unemployed and that they will be accepted if appropriate and we can get everyone back to work.”
