Alaska Eases Restrictions For Travel To/From The State

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Without a clear federal lead on how to handle the 2019 Novel Coronavirus, states have had to make up their own rules as they’ve gone along. This has lead to some states that have probably underprotected their citizens, with little to no mandates in terms of mask use, social distancing or quarantine, etc. Other states have truly kept their responsibilities to heart and states such as Hawaii, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, for example, have multiple rules in place to help keep COVID at bay.

Alaska has been another state with very stringent COVID-related rules. Here are most of them. However their rules have worked well for them; although they’ve recently had an uptick in cases, to date, they’ve had less than 12,000 (and barely more than 250 new ones on any given day) and only 63 deaths.

Alaska state leaders have therefore decided to ease restrictions on travel:

• The quarantine requirement for people flying into Alaska without a negative test is now five days (it had previously been 14 days, although travelers could reduce it to as little as seven days if they took another test after arriving and it was negative).
• Travelers into the state will no longer have to take a second test to leave quarantine.
• Alaskans will be able to travel out of state for up to 72 hours without the requirement of taking a COVID test upon return, rather than the current limit of 24 hours (of course except for these special circumstances, Canada may have something to say about that one).
• Travel required for “critical infrastructure,” which includes child custody and visitation, military families relocating, and the health care professionals traveling for work will be able to travel out of state for any reason and follow their employers’ plans for testing and quarantine, instead of the state mandates for other travelers.

These went into effect on October 15.

From a tourism point of view, a decreased quarantine period could potentially entice more people to visit. Unfortunately, the changes come as Alaska is becoming colder and darker for the winter months. But still, for those who want to go there, it’s good info to know.

Go to the State of Alaska’s website for more information.

Feature Photo: Pixy.org

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary