Delaware’s COVID-19 case total is nearing 13,000, but its new case numbers are low enough to get off quarantine lists in multiple states.
New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut are no longer asking visitors from the First State to quarantine for 14 days.
The move come a week after Delaware was added to New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut's travel advisory lists that also include COVID-19 hot spots like Arizona, Texas and Florida.
Pennsylvania added Delaware over the weekend. Philadelphia also briefly added Delaware to its list last week, but quickly reconsidered.
The states made their decisions based on Delaware’s new case numbers and percentage of people testing positive.
"The reason that we've been removed from the list is because our data meet their criteria," said Gov. John Carney at his weekly coronavirus press briefing Tuesday. He also reinterated his belief Delaware should never have ben on those lists to begin with, expressing frustration with being lumped in with current COVID-19 hotspots like Arizona, Florida, and Texas. He Carney had been in contact with the governors of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania for a few days before being taken off.
Carney says more testing at the state’s beaches in response to some positive tests there hurt Delaware with the other states - pushing its positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents category.
"[It] really penalized Delaware for testing aggressively into an outbreak, the outbreak that we had among the beach communities which pushed our numbers above that second metric while we were 50 percent better than the metric on percent positive which is one of the primary, maybe the primary criteria that we used," Carney said.
And while Carney is glad to be off the lists, he concedes it is a wake-up call to keep doing the things needed to avoid a spike in cases.
“Our ability to our situation here – and the number of positive cases by wearing a facemask, but keeping social distancing, by avoiding large gatherings will keep us out of the jeopardy of going over these criteria. And we still are still kind of on the margin," said Carney
Delaware health officials reported 90 new cases Tuesday, pushing the First State’s total to date to 12,969. But officials note the over 300 positive tests in the Sussex Correctional Institution are not part of that total yet.
The 5-day average for new cases each day is below 100 for an ninth straight day, sitting at 92 Monday.
The percent testing positive rate stood at 4.1 Monday. And the 5-day average is below 5 for a fourth day. 5 percent is the World Health Organization’s target as one indication the virus is controlled.
There was also one new death reported, lifting the state’s total COVID-19-related death toll to 518.
Current hospitalizations dropped by 1 to 48, with 10 people critically ill.
More than 7,100 people to date are confirmed to have recovered from the virus. Nearly 129,000 people have tested negative.
This story has been updated
