CDC Issues Travel Advisory for New York, New Jersey, Connecticut

Trump says quarantine 'not necessary'

Times Square stands mostly empty as much of the city is void of cars and pedestrians over fears of spreading the CCP virus in New York City on March 22, 2020. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel advisory for residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut on March 28 after President Donald Trump said an “enforced quarantine” of the three states because of the CCP virus pandemic was unnecessary.

The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, to spread throughout that country and create a global pandemic.

In its travel advisory released late March 28, the CDC urged people across the three states to “refrain from non-essential domestic travel” for the next 14 days, effective immediately.

That doesn’t include employees of critical infrastructure industries, as defined by the Department of Homeland Security, including but not limited to trucking, public health professionals, financial services, and food supply, which it states have a “special responsibility to maintain normal work schedules.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont will have full discretion to implement the CDC’s latest domestic travel advisory, it notes.

The advisory came after Trump told reporters that his administration was considering a short-term quarantine restricting travel in those “hot spots” areas, since he'd been told that New Yorkers were traveling to places such as Florida, potentially spreading the virus.

As cases of the CCP virus continue to rise in America, New York has now officially become the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, with 59,648 people infected and 965 reported deaths, as of March 29. New Jersey had 13,386 confirmed cases and 161 reported deaths, while Connecticut had 1,993 confirmed cases and 34 reported deaths.

“We’re thinking about certain things. Some people would like to see New York quarantined because it’s a hot spot," he told reporters at the White House on March 28.

“We might not have to do it, but there’s a possibility that sometime today, we’ll do a quarantine—short-term, two weeks—on New York, probably New Jersey, certain parts of Connecticut.”

Trump also wrote on Twitter hours earlier that he was “giving consideration to a quarantine of developing ‘hot spots’, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut,” adding that “a decision will be made, one way or another, shortly.”

However, after speaking to the White House coronavirus task force and the governors of the three states, the president said that an “enforced quarantine” would not be necessary.

“On the recommendation of the White House CoronaVirus Task Force, and upon consultation with the Governor’s [sic] of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, I have asked the [CDC] to issue a strong Travel Advisory, to be administered by the Governors, in consultation with the Federal Government. A quarantine will not be necessary,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Ahead of the CDC’s travel advisory, Cuomo suggested an enforced lockdown would not be legal, calling it a “declaration of war on states,” that would cause “chaos and mayhem,” and “shock the economic markets in a way that we’ve never seen before.”

“Again, I’ve been speaking to the president. This would be a declaration of war on states. A federal declaration of war,” Cuomo told CNN. “And it wouldn’t just be just New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. Next week, it would be Louisiana with New Orleans, and the next week after that it would be Detroit, and it could run all across the nation. And I don’t think the president is looking to start a lot of wars with a lot of states just about now for a lot of reasons.”

The governor noted that New York has already mandated that citizens stay at home unless they are deemed an essential worker.