Those Connecticut Traveler Self-Quarantine Rules Demystified

CONNECTICUT — If you were tidying up the guest room for Uncle Harry's annual visit from Arkansas, you may want to put down the dust mop. Harry may be changing his plans when he realizes he won't be getting out much.

The governors of Connecticut, New York and New Jersey have announced a mandatory 14-day self-quarantine period for travelers coming into the region from states with high rates of coronavirus infections. The order went into effect at midnight Wednesday.

As of Saturday, travel restrictions are in place for Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah. States get inducted into the Quarantine Club if they have a new daily positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents, or a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average. This advisory also applies to Connecticut residents who are returning from a visit to the impacted states.

Source: CT DPH, Jun. 24, 2020

Out-of-state visitors are free to self-quarantine at their hotel or bed-and-breakfast (or nephew's guestroom), and guests coming for shorter stays can quarantine and self-monitor for less than 14 days if their stay is shorter.

You can tell Uncle Harry that if he does decide to visit and take a walk outside, it's not like some Major Crimes Unit is going to swoop in and slap him in a cell. Far from it. State officials are stressing that the 14-day self-quarantine order is just an "advisory," and although the authorities are "strongly urging visitors to Connecticut to take this step," compliance is totally left up to the visitors.

Should your houseguest not be a guest, but a full-fledged member of your household whose timing is just really bad and is scheduled to come back in the midst of this quarantine order, don't sweat it. Although the state would prefer your family member to delay the homecoming, nothing is mandated beyond the 14-day self-quarantine. If it is not possible to self-quarantine from other household members, those other household members who did not travel from an impacted state are not required to self-quarantine.

If there is anything that the coronavirus crisis has taught us, it's that essential workers have the inside track, and that's not changed with this new advisory. People traveling from impacted states to Connecticut who work in critical infrastructure as designated by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are exempted from the quarantine advisory. This includes any state, local, and federal officials and employees traveling in their official capacities on government business.

Non-visitors to Connecticut, whose flights are just laying over at an airport in the Nutmeg State, can also relax. None of these restrictions apply if you don't leave the airport.

See also: Town-by-Town Coronavirus Cases, Deaths and People Tested As Hospitalizations Drop Significantly

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