Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has announced that all airline passengers arriving from the New York-area will face a mandatory 14-day quarantine. Are more domestic flight restrictions around the corner?
DeSantis announced the ban Monday evening, warning that, “I would reckon given the outbreak there that every single flight has someone on it that is positive for COVID-19, and so as we’re working to stop it in the state of Florida.” He added:
“If the federal government is not going to do any restrictions on domestic flights, what we’re going to do in Florida, and I’ll be issuing an executive order, anybody traveling from that region, New York, New Jersey, is going to have to do a mandatory 14-day self-isolation..that’s the only way we can be sure that the virus is not going to be reintroduced into Florida and spread.”
The ban applies to flights from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut and does not apply to passengers who connected through those airports in those states to reach Florida.
Expect health officials and law enforcement to meet incoming aircraft to conduct temperature checks and register travelers for self-quarantine. Members of the military, emergency, and health workers are exempted from the order.
More Domestic Flights Restrictions Coming?
The news changes on a daily basis, but the White House has thus far suggested that a total ban on domestic flights is not on the table. But U.S. carriers and the government are now talking about a further shutdown.
View from the Wing believes we will see more domestic restrictions, particularly in areas that where the virus is contained. As we continue to monitor the trajectory of COVID-19, I also would not be surprised to see more flights cut off to California and New York, since even connecting at JFK or EWR right now poses a higher risk than other hubs, based upon the concentration of COVID-19 cases in those states.
Any domestic shutdown would give U.S. airlines more ammunition to argue that they deserve a taxpayer bailout.
CONCLUSION
There’s a certain irony in restricting incoming passengers to a “mandatory” quarantine that will be self-enforced while also allowing teenagers to continue to frolic on Miami beaches. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once called U.S. states “laboratories of democracy”. That may come increasingly into play as each states battles COVID-19, though I think the latest travel restriction is more about optics than anything else.
Will this impact your travel to Florida?
image: DonkeyHotey
The same governor who allowed tens of thousands of spring breakers to gather on beaches and in bars for a week in what was akin to a Petrie dish culture of Covid-19, then dispersed them across the nation! Let alone infecting its huge over-79 population!, But then that’s Florida, a state that not only elected a convicted Medicare embezzler as governor but then sent him to the Senate!!!
Florida is all about the money!!!
Republicans are amassing the biggest fiscal stimulus. This is s party that does not believe in Keynesian policy. They believe in balanced budgets but have thrown that out of the window. They are behaving like Democrats
This party is opening Obamacare to uninsured again. They are behaving like Democrats.
The party wants to give bailouts to corporates. In fact the argument from republicans online i see most of the time is obama got to screw me so trump should get to screw me too. That is the gist of it.
The only difference between Republicans and Democrats at this time is that Republicans hate lgtq even if they secretly have gay lovers, hate abortions even if they secretly pressure their mistresses to have abortions and they hate brown people.
What do Republicans stand for besides kissing trump’s ass? In some sense Republicans are the most practical. Grift as much as possible.
By the way, i support trump in this. We should reopen the economy. Old people will be dead soon anyway. We can’t kill the economy for them.
“Pulling the plug on grandma” it turns out is what Republicans want to do now. When Obamacare proposed it in more clinical terms Republicans couldn’t stand for it, because obama. But giving it a financial angle makes it better. So here goes
Republicans if you murder grandma sooner you will get the inheritance sooner. The china ccp virus gives you a good cover to murder grandma.
If the FAA had any ba—, which it does not, it would ban all flights from NY to FL, from FL to NY, from CA to NY, from NY to CA, and from other areas where there are high rates of infection. However, it won’t do so, because it is dictated to by the powerful airline lobby, which controls Congress, and the FAA. The FAA is similar to a puppet on a string.
Please accept my apology if I missed anything, but if I am departing from New Jersey, connecting in Florida, for example, EWR – MIA – IAH, do I face mandatory 14-day quarantine? Thanks all.
“… where the virus is contained.”
And where is that exactly? Mauritius? Tonga? I think that such places are the only place where such a claim would be reasonably plausible.
If there were even a whiff of infrastructure to make this order remotely feasible, I might take it seriously. As it is, it strikes me as nothing more than political cover. It’s a wonderful way for DeSantis to make it seem like he’s taking tough actions to protect the citizens he serves while, in effect, doing less than nothing.
Since the onset of symptoms / outbreak takes 14 days..All those bench morons have less than a week before they eat their words. So sad the state of FL let this happen.
This is ridiculous. No one at the airport is testing. These people from ny are not staying here for 14 days.
Does this same rule apply to Flight Attendants who get exposed to everyone on a flight and are based in NY. The airlines say they are exempt…?!?
Airlines are exempt. Hopefully an exposed FA would have the decency to self-quarantine.