Maui County received approval from the governor to require all incoming inter-island and trans-Pacific travelers to use a COVID exposure application/setting on their smart phone or else face a 10-day quarantine. This new rule goes into effect Tuesday, January 19, 2021 at 12:01 a.m. This new requirement is in addition to all the others such as using the Safe Travels digital registration platform and obtaining a negative COVID test result before your last leg of travel.
These new rules are posted at this link on the Maui County COVID website. Also, you may find it helpful to watch Maui County’s January 15, 2021 press conference. The announcement of this new rule starts shortly after the five-minute mark.
A couple of exemptions to this new rule that were noted in the press conference are:
- Persons under the age of 18 years without a mobile device are exempt
- Adults who do not have a mobile device must have at least one individual in their traveling party must comply
Most smart phones have an exposure notification in their current operating system. Search within your settings for “exposure notifications.” Per Friday’s press conference, having that setting turned on will suffice. Alternatively, Hawaii has their own AlohaSafe Alert app that can be used.
For more information about this and other Maui County specific rules, see this website for the County of Maui.
Sheila Beal
2 comments
What if a person had the vaccines, as I have?
So far, we haven’t heard of an exception for that, but you could contact Maui County directly and ask them.
We’ve read that there are discussions that would eventually allow visitors to bypass quarantine with the two vaccine shots that are taken 2 weeks or more before their trip. That’s only in proposal phase at this time. Could that also have an effect on whether Maui will force visitors to use a contact tracing app or not?