State of COVID in Hawaii.

Hawaii has done an amazing job keeping COVID in check, especially in the smaller towns on islands like Maui and Kauai. They take mask-wearing particularly seriously (see the text below the sign) and their travel quarantine (followed by a you-may-enter-with-negative-covid-test policy as of a month ago) has kept out the influx of covidy mainlanders. They also have the cultural advantage of a focus on outdoor hobbies and a warm climate that lent itself to outdoor dining before it was a pandemic survival strategy.

Separately, Hawaii knows a lot about running a quarantine, institutionally speaking. They already had a policy of extensive agricultural inspections of tourist luggage to keep invasive species out, so they have the cultural inclinations and institutional knowledge to treat COVID as just another invasive species.

OTOH, the quarantine has dramatically impacted the tourist industry here. Maybe 1/3 of our favorite businesses are gone, and the area surrounding the airport is covered with thousands of unused rental cars parked bumper to bumper, depreciating slowly in makeshift dirt parking lots until the tourists return.

It's still better than sacrificing a thousand Hawaiian residents in the name of economic continuity though.