Cuomo: NY won't enforce NJ, CT, PA quarantines

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - The rate of COVID-19 infections has risen enough in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut to require those states' residents to quarantine if they travel to New York, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo says New York won't enforce the rules against those residents.

New Jersey, New York and Connecticut had announced the joint travel advisory this summer at a time when the Northeast was seeing relatively low rates of infection while other parts of the country saw spikes. Now, two of those states meet the criteria to be placed on their own quarantine lists. 

But the governor said Tuesday he doesn't expect residents from Connecticut, New Jersey or Pennsylvania to follow New York's rule requiring self-quarantine for 14 days for states on the list.

"There is no practical way to quarantine New York from New Jersey and Connecticut," he told reporters in a conference call. "There are just too many interchanges, there are too many interconnections, there are too many people who live in one place and work in the other. It would have a disastrous effect on the economy."

States are added to the quarantine list if they hit a threshold of averaging 10 or more new cases per day per 100,000 residents over a seven-day period.

States can also land on the quarantine list if 10% of tests came up positive on average over the past week.

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Connecticut has averaged 11.2 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past week, while New Jersey has averaged 10.3, Pennsylvania has averaged 11.1 and Massachusetts has reached 9.9.

"The norm in the country is going up," Cuomo said. "We are not going up the way the norm in the country is going up. And hence, they're 'quarantined' from New York."

A sign displaying COVID-19 travel advisory above a road in Queens, N.Y., July 25, 2020. (Getty Images)

While Cuomo's Special Counsel Beth Garvey said during the call that both Connecticut and New Jersey would be "added" to the list this week, Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi later clarified they would not be.

"We hadn't changed anything in our metrics," he told the Associated Press. "We're going to acknowledge they meet the criteria. We're not enforcing a quarantine order." 

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Two different states are officially being added to New York's list of 40 states and territories: Arizona, which has had a seven-day average of 10.9 new cases per 100,000 residents, and Maryland, which has had an average of 10.2.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday that was he talking with New Jersey and New York about making it easier for states to avoid getting on the quarantine list. 

But Cuomo's office said Monday that Lamont was only speaking for Connecticut.

Cuomo said he'll be talking with Connecticut and New Jersey officials Tuesday and expects to "have more to say" on travel rules by Wednesday.

He said they'll be talking "about making it clear to the extent travel among the states or between the states is non-essential, it should be avoided."