I am asking that Gov. Ige reject Mayor Kawakami's emergency rule 18 requiring an additional Covid test and 3 to 6 days of quarantine for travlers arriving on or after October 15th. 

 The propsed additional measures will be a barrier to economic recovery that local business and families on Kauai can not afford! We already have unprecedented homelessness, unemployment and food vulnerable residents. 

Gov. Ige announced that the state already has a 1 billion dollar loan for unemployment funding that needs to be repaid. With additional barriers to travel, state funding will continue to suffer and government programs will be underfunded while demands for these programs will continue to increase. 

Also, the requirement of additional testing on our island will provide a demand for tests and lab equipment that we can not meet at this time. The lack of testing capacity will create backlogs and result in travelers quarantining for much longer than anticipated while waiting for results. 

With only 2 weeks until the pre travel testing is supposed to begin, airlines, hotels and local businesses have already started planning for the reopening. Pulling the rug out from under them for a third or fourth time with such short notice will be detrimental to them and the employees that were planning on getting back to work.