Delaware is on three lists Gov. John Carney doesn’t believe the state belongs - 14-day self-quarantine lists for travel to New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.
The governors of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut announced Tuesday Delaware joined state’s like Arizona, Texas, and Florida on the list of most recent COVID-19 hotspots .
States can land on those travel advisory lists one of two ways.
The first is having a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average. Delaware currently sits at 5.3 percent.
The other is a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents. And Carney says Delaware doesn’t really fit that either.
"And we're on the border like because we are actively testing in an area where there was an uptick," said Carney. "So the criteria is number of new positive cases per 100,000 so that puts us at about - 97 is the break off point - you know, you can see from the numbers were just a little bit above and some days were below it."
Carney is urging Delawareans to wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines to tamp down spread of the virus and stay off lists like these. And he adds Delaware shouldn’t be lumped in with the other states experiencing hotspots.
"I don't believe we belong in that category at the same time because we're not frankly in the same ballpark as the other states that are identified similarly," said Carney. "So I don't think we should be singled out, certainly not by our partners in the region that we've tried to help when they needed our help."
Carney says Delaware doesn’t have a plan to put in place any similar list, and that he plans to contact the other governors about Delaware being placed on the travel quarantine lists.
