NEW YORK (WABC) — Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that international travelers coming from what are considered Level 2 and 3 countries will have to quarantine and fill out a travel form when they arrive in New York.
Cuomo signed the executive order Monday in response to the CDC’s decision to roll back screening measures at airports amid rising COVID-19 cases across the world.
Health officials say the measure is necessary for contact tracing purposes.
“The CDC’s decision to end enhanced screening at airports, coupled with alarming case increases in countries around the world, presents an increased threat to New York’s progress in the war against COVID-19,” Governor Cuomo said. “Today’s Executive Order will require the Department of Health to alert all travelers from any Level 2 or Level 3 country of mandatory quarantine requirements, as well as require international travelers to complete the DOH Traveler Health Form to aid in the state’s robust contact tracing efforts and further prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
The executive order builds on the domestic COVID-19 Travel Advisory already in place for states that have a significant degree of community-wide spread of coronavirus.
The 31 countries not subject to the governor’s executive order and mandatory quarantine requirement are listed below:
American Samoa
Anguilla
Bonaire
Brunei
Cambodia
Cayman Islands
Dominica
Falkland Islands
Fiji
Guernsey
Greenland
Grenada
Isle of Man
Laos
Macau SAR
Marshall Islands
Mauritius
Micronesia
Montserrat
New Caledonia
New Zealand
Palau
Saba
Saint Barthelemy
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Pierre and Miquelon
Sint Eustatius
Taiwan
Thailand
Timor-Leste
State health officials say the quarantine applies to any person arriving from an area with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a 7-day rolling average or an area with a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average.