Until more people get vaccinated and case numbers drop, Ige asked residents and visitors to limit travel between islands. “The primary reasons that it hasn’t happened at this point in time is that Oahu and Maui continue to have virus activity that is significantly higher per capita than the other counties.” “We do want to see lower case counts before we open interisland travel again,” Ige said.

In the meantime, the state is mulling the possibility of lowering restrictions for interisland travelers who are vaccinated, but COVID-19 cases on Oahu and Maui are still a concern and the focus is more on “getting as many people vaccinated as possible.” While the governor said that it’s too soon to give a timeline for a vaccine passport program, he told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser earlier Monday that it would take at least four weeks, but even then there’s “much work to be done.” “They may have parts of the country first and then add as they go, and so it’s hard to peg a date, but it wouldn’t surprise me if by summer we could have this going and have that as an availability for all the people who want to come to Hawaii.” “We are piloting things with them right now, that if the vaccination database would come online we could do it, but we’re just not sure how fast the vaccination database will be issued,” Murdock said. The digital app would essentially partner with the state’s Safe Travels program in verifying vaccinations.ĭoug Murdock, chief information officer of Enterprise Technology Services, said that “great progress” has been made since beginning the pilot programs in October. “We know it will take some time to be able to validate vaccination status of individuals in all the states, but we do know that companies like CommonPass and CLEAR are at the forefront of being able to verify vaccination status of individuals.” “We are seeing good results at this point in time and (CommonPass and CLEAR) have committed to incorporating vaccination data and status into platforms when it becomes available, so we feel pretty good about where we are,” Ige said. Ige said Monday that the state is working on a pilot program with digital application companies CLEAR and CommonPass, which are already being used by a few airlines nationwide to validate negative COVID-19 results before travel, but there’s much more to consider before moving forward. However, the CDC also advises travelers to follow the restrictions of states and local governments. without the need for a pre-travel test or a post-travel quarantine period as long as they continue to take precautions while traveling, like wearing a face mask, practicing good hygiene and staying at least 6 feet away from others.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its travel guidance to allow people who are completely vaccinated to travel within the U.S. We’ve told the providers that they need to report on gross vaccinations provided so that we can report that information back to the federal government, but we did not explicitly require them to enter the vaccination records into the system.”Ĭreating a vaccination database would also include meeting standards and jurisdictions of each state, and possibly each county, Ige said. “We have been focused on getting shots in arms. “The challenge is that there’s no comprehensive record of those who have been vaccinated in Hawaii,” Ige explained during a news conference on Monday afternoon. Technological challenges and rising COVID-19 case numbers on Maui and Oahu remain obstacles for a Hawaii vaccine passport program that would exempt fully vaccinated people from interisland and trans-Pacific travel restrictions, Gov. David Ige said Monday that the state needs records of those who have been vaccinated in Hawaii before it can implement a vaccine passport allowing people to travel without restrictions.