Speaker 1: It's Thursday, September three. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America.
Speaker 1: As the pandemic worked its way through the United States,
Speaker 1: Hawaii had a handle on its cases early on. Recently, however,
Speaker 1: case counts and hospitalizations have started to creep up as
Speaker 1: a result of complacency by residents and a lack of
Speaker 1: preparation by officials. Quarantine measures for travelers are still in place,
Speaker 1: and the opening of the state has continued to be delayed.
Speaker 1: Alice Miranda Olstein, healthcare reporter at Politico, joins us for
Speaker 1: what happened to Hawaii. Thanks for joining us, Alice, absolutely,
Speaker 1: thank you. I wanted to talk about Hawaii throughout the
Speaker 1: coronavirus pandemic. They started off very well. The case number
Speaker 1: was very low of coronavirus, but just very recently the
Speaker 1: numbers have started to go up. There really has been
Speaker 1: a kind of seesaw effect with the way they've open stuff,
Speaker 1: closed things, and obviously the effect that it's having on
Speaker 1: the economy, since they're heavily reliant on tourism, has been
Speaker 1: all over the place. So what is going on with Hawaii?
Speaker 1: As I mentioned they start off so well and things
Speaker 1: have gotten worse since the summer began, So what's going
Speaker 1: on there with way, So, just a few months ago,
Speaker 1: Hawaii had the fewest cases per capita in the whole country.
Speaker 1: They obviously have some geographic advantages. It's easier to close
Speaker 1: your borders and know who's coming in when you are
Speaker 1: an island in the middle of ocean than easier than
Speaker 1: other states. So they took a lot of precautions early
Speaker 1: on and it really paid off, and their case count
Speaker 1: was extremely low. And then they did not use that
Speaker 1: time period to build up these pessing and contact tracing
Speaker 1: infrastructure necessary for a surge, and inevitably a surge came.
Speaker 1: Once businesses reopened, people gathered together again. It really took
Speaker 1: off over the July fourth weekend. People not wearing masks,
Speaker 1: people gathering together, and the state didn't have enough testing
Speaker 1: and contact tracing services and the workforce needed. And now
Speaker 1: they're scrambling to build it up. Now the generals flew
Speaker 1: all the way there to open up a testing site,
Speaker 1: a surge testing site, and now they're scrambling to contain
Speaker 1: things and a lot of officials there and folks we
Speaker 1: talked to in the health world say this have been
Speaker 1: avoided if we did this preparation ahead of time rather
Speaker 1: than doing it after things have gotten this bad. It's
Speaker 1: kind of the same tale that we saw throughout the
Speaker 1: country various states who started off well, then they got complacent,
Speaker 1: and the public kind of got complacent as well. Nobody
Speaker 1: really prepared for that second wave or another surge, and
Speaker 1: then boom, you're hit with a bunch of rising cases.
Speaker 1: So in Hawaii, as you mentioned, one of the biggest
Speaker 1: things was the contact tracing effort. They said the state
Speaker 1: needs about four hundred contact tracers. They have about a hundred,
Speaker 1: So I know that's been one of the biggest points
Speaker 1: of contention there, definitely, and so they are hiring more now,
Speaker 1: trying to build that out now train people. But again,
Speaker 1: this is challenging work and it takes time to hire
Speaker 1: and train people. And the frustration a lot of folks
Speaker 1: communicated to us is that we could have known ahead
Speaker 1: of time that this would have been necessary and done
Speaker 1: this preparation work when cases were low and we had
Speaker 1: a little breathing room, instead of doing it now once
Speaker 1: we're really under the gun. So what were some of
Speaker 1: the other points that went wrong. From my reading in
Speaker 1: the article, the administration got a little complacent. And what
Speaker 1: they did, though, was they started opening up some of
Speaker 1: this indoor dining stuff the salons before doing things in
Speaker 1: outdoor spaces like opening up some of the beaches and
Speaker 1: hiking trails. So they kind of did it opposite. The
Speaker 1: public health experts I talked to are really baffled by this,
Speaker 1: and this has been an issue in other states as well.
Speaker 1: So the virus spread most easily in enclosed environments. If
Speaker 1: we're in a restaurant indoors, talking and eating, it's much
Speaker 1: easier for it to spread and for people to get
Speaker 1: infected than in outdoor spaces where the air is circulating
Speaker 1: and the virus can disperse and the sunlight helps as well.
Speaker 1: And yet Hawaii opened up people could go to malls
Speaker 1: and restaurants and nail salons before they could go to
Speaker 1: some of the beaches and parks and hiking trails. And
Speaker 1: this is just the opposite of what public health guidance recommends.
Speaker 1: What has been the response from Governor David E. Gay
Speaker 1: I know he is still saying, well, you know, we
Speaker 1: did a lot of good things for the state, but
Speaker 1: you know, our numbers are low, and still relatively to
Speaker 1: the country, the numbers are very low there. But he
Speaker 1: kind of threw it on the public, saying they got complacent,
Speaker 1: and as you mentioned earlier, fourth of July was a
Speaker 1: big one. Everybody went out and started parting. Additionally, some
Speaker 1: state leaders have said no amount of contact tracing could
Speaker 1: have prevented this. The response from the public health community
Speaker 1: is yes, but it could have massively helped. I mean,
Speaker 1: every time you contact someone and say you were exposed,
Speaker 1: please stay home, that breaks the chain of transmission and
Speaker 1: prevents it from spreading even further. And so even if
Speaker 1: there would have been some surge due to for the
Speaker 1: July and people getting complaintent and not wearing masks, contact
Speaker 1: racing always helped. So yes, but I think it is
Speaker 1: very telling. This is sort of breaking news. The head
Speaker 1: of the health department just resigned one day after our
Speaker 1: story ran. He's been there for decades and he just retired.
Speaker 1: So I think that is a sign that there is
Speaker 1: somewhat of a reckoning around the state's officials response to this.
Speaker 1: So what kind of restrictions do they have right now?
Speaker 1: Because I know for a long time they were doing
Speaker 1: the you know, if you arrived into the state, you
Speaker 1: had to do a fourteen day quarantine. Early on, they
Speaker 1: did lockdowns and stay at home orders. It seems like
Speaker 1: they have some of those in place again, I think
Speaker 1: so they're putting them in place just for Oahu where
Speaker 1: it's the worst right now, but it could extend to
Speaker 1: the other islands depending on how things go. So there
Speaker 1: is new stay at home order there. Bars are closing,
Speaker 1: and like you said, the economy is so heavily dependent
Speaker 1: on tourism that folks are really suffering there. The unemployment
Speaker 1: rate is in the double digits, and the date for
Speaker 1: reopening to tourism keeps getting pushed back further and further
Speaker 1: as these outbreaks are getting worse and hospitalizations are way up.
Speaker 1: And even though the state has had a very low
Speaker 1: number of deaths throughout the pandemic, a big chunk of
Speaker 1: those have happened in the last couple of weeks, which
Speaker 1: is a very troubling sign. Hopefully they can get it
Speaker 1: together and then, you know, as we've just been saying,
Speaker 1: since they're so heavily relying on tourism, they can open
Speaker 1: the state back up so that they can get that
Speaker 1: back in order as well. Alice Miranda Olstein, healthcare reporter
Speaker 1: at Politico. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm Oscar Ameres and this has been reopening America. Don't
Speaker 1: forget different today's big news stories. You can check me
Speaker 1: out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday to Friday.
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