The Governor has done an excellent job keeping the virus off of the island of St John. There have been only 4 positive tests to date.
However, his office issued a clarification to his statements at the press conference yesterday. It turns out there is NOT yet a policy regarding limiting travel from certain states. There is no need to cancel your flights yet. That said, usually when he mentions that something could be coming in the future, it eventually does. So we should keep a close eye on his weekly statements.
The Governor made a huge mistake with his vague news conference on Thursday by NOT setting a date to implement the 72 hour Covid test requirement for visitors from “hot spots” which he referenced as Texas and Florida. He put my family, TX, in a frenzy by taking it upon ourselves to quickly find a testing center and be tested. We had a July 5 flight from Houston to STT and there was very little time to find a testing center, drive to it, fill out the forms, wait in line and be tested before they close at 5pm. They were closing on July 3/4 for the holiday.
His news conference was around 1pm which gave us approximately 3 hours to be tested locally before the 4th July business shut downs which started on July 3.
We did not know if the 72 hour test rule for visitors would be effective after his news conference OR sometime in the future so we had no choice except to be tested at the last minute.
The news conference did not outline any specifics rather a broad declaration of authoritarian rule. A public apology needs to be made and accept the results of those, like us, who did the test before our arrival even though it may be before the effective date. Our testing and results need to be except of his soon to be deadline. Not a happy visitor Mr. Govenor!
We are scheduled to come to St. John the end of the month. The possible 72 hour COVID testing is almost impossible to do. Most testing results range up to a week to get results back. What are we supposed to do if it is put in place. I completely understand verifying no COVID is entering the islands but a quarantine would use up our time on the island and force us and I am sure many others to cancel our trip which was booked last year. Can the timeframe on the testing be changed to a more reasonable one?