COVID-19 Reopening Staycations: EU Bars US Travelers, New York Restricts California Visitors
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Tuesday was a bad day for anyone planning on traveling outside of the state or the country for the July Fourth holiday week.
First, the European Union banned all U.S. travelers from journeying to continental Europe for at least the next 14 days because of the sudden rise in COVID-19 cases across America.
Then New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took to Twitter to announce California was among the states that his health officials were requiring to undergo a 14-day quarantine when their residents come to visit.
Joining California on New York's quarantine list were: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.
"As an increasing number of states around the country fight significant community spread, New York is taking action to maintain the precarious safety of its phased, data-driven reopening," Cuomo said. "We've set metrics for community spread just as we've set metrics for everything the state does to fight COVID-19, and eight more states have reached the level of spread required to qualify for New York's travel advisory, meaning we will now require individuals traveling to New York from those states to quarantine for 14 days."
So say hello to the July 4th backyard staycation.
If your plans were for a trip even farther away, the European Union announced Tuesday it was keeping the borders in continental Europe closed to U.S. travelers for at least 14 days because of an uptick in new coronavirus cases.
SFO officials announced last week that United Airlines, British Airways and Lufthansa had all resumed flights to and from Europe in June after grounding travel since March because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Those will now likely only be repatriation flight for European Union citizens.
"We've seen a lot of service being restored. Non-stop service to London, various cities in Germany, destinations in Asia. We expect more in the month of July, but this decision will obviously limit what type of passengers are eligible to go on board these airplanes. That'll limit what airlines decide to increase in the future and that's unfortunate," said Doug Yakel, SFO spokesperson.
Flights to Asian destinations will not be impacted by Tuesday's announcement. Nor will it impact travel to Great Britain, which has left the European Union.
More than 15 million Americans are estimated to travel to Europe each year, while some 10 million Europeans head across the Atlantic.
Along San Francisco's Embarcadero, people didn't seem surprised by the EU ban.
"The European Union, they're doing much, much better. They have a fifth, one-fifth of our cases. Why should we go an contaminate them when they're doing so well. Everybody worked so hard there to keep the infection down. We're not doing well in the US, so we need to be responsible," said Lily Hilton of San Francisco.
Citizens from the following countries will be allowed into the EU's 27 members and four other nations in Europe's visa-free Schengen travel zone: Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay.
The EU said China is "subject to confirmation of reciprocity," meaning it must lift all restrictions on European citizens entering China before it will allow Chinese citizens back in.
