Editor’s Note: Questions about stay-at-home orders can be submitted to tinyurl.com/TGIQ-A and The Garden Island staff will do our best to find you an answer by contacting county officials and Kauai District Health Officer Dr. Janet Berreman. Be aware these answers are informed with the latest directives from officials and can change as official rules and recommendations change. Contact the Hawai‘i Department of Health or your physician for official COVID-19 symptoms and steps to take if you think you have the virus.
Q: My mother-in-law has dementia and lives alone in Lihu‘e. We live in Wailua Homesteads and drive to Lihue to take care of her. If stopped what kind of documentation do we need?
A: Leaving the house to care for the elderly, minors, dependents persons with disabilities or persons in a high-risk group is allowed. Additionally, a local rule notes that more than one person from a household may leave the residence to engage in supervisory care for a person in one of these groups.
There have been no official rules stating that official documents must be shown at checkpoints.
Q: Do I have to follow the 9 p.m. curfew if I am subsistence fishing? Some of the fish I am targeting only come out at night.
A: Subsistence fishing and hunting are exempt from curfew restrictions, per an amendment to the Mayor’s Emergency Rule No. 2, which is the curfew.
Q: Is there an approved (official) set of directions about how to make a protective face mask that could be effective at reducing the chance of spreading COVID?
A: Cloth face coverings are a good added layer of prevention to slow the spread of COVID in our community. A cloth mask that covers the nose and mouth stops respiratory droplets from going out into the environment or to other people. This is what is meant by “my mask protects you.” By wearing a mask, we protect those around us. In addition, “your mask protects me.” If you are wearing a mask, I am less likely to be exposed to your respiratory droplets.
These are not medical grade masks, and there is no one way they need to be made. There are many patterns publicly available, and anything that is easy to make and comfortable to wear is fine. Even a bandana tied to cover the nose and mouth helps keeps your germs to yourself. The fabric should be washable and tightly woven, preferably cotton.
Masks should be worn whenever people are outside the house and around others — shopping, running errands, riding the bus, or at work. It is not necessary to wear a mask when exercising alone outdoors, although it is fine to do so.
Masks are not a substitute for keeping a distance of 6 feet from others, washing hands frequently, and staying at home as much as possible. All of these measures, taken together by all of us, are our best chance for slowing the spread of COVID-19. – Dr. Janet Berreman
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Sabrina Bodon, public safety and government reporter, can be reached at 245-0441 or sbodon@thegardenisland.com.
“subsistence fishing and hunting”……
Ah, you know, if you are healthy enough to spend a day running around the woods, kill an animal, clean, cut, and prepare the animal, then I recommend you just get a minimum wage job for 8 hours, and hit the grocery store. Who comes up with this drama?????? “I need to spend hours and hours fishing to feed my family”. Get. A. Job. SMH.
Government regulation that has common sense and reason behind it is necessary and applauded. Physical Distancing (no, not “social” distancing–not happening with e-mail and texting and phoning and snapchat and….) is logical and necessary. Masks, yes, in being around others. But stopping cars and asking where they are going??? Nope, crosses the line. None of your business. If I drive a car to a ten-person party, yes, your business, but not until the party exists–the driving there is NOT hurting anyone. Enforced, limited isolation is the goal, not incarceration. There is NO harm to anyone by a car full of people who live together or who, otherwise, are in constant contact where they live. The infraction results, if any, when they don’t keep a distance from others, fail to wear a mask in public, fail to stay at home when sick, etc.–Focus on the infraction, not the behavior which is harmless in itself. And the National Guard?? The increase of their numbers “enforcing” what doesn’t need enforcing, is a misuse of power. Their numbers and exposure to themselves and others is a greater threat than their stopping drivers to ask questions that are none of their business.
It is sad that what’s apparently proven effective in limiting the spread of the virus is total shutdown and complete control of the populace, most easily accomplished in an autocratic dictatorship–as in China–but they also control what they release as “news,” so it’s hard to get at the actual true story of how control actually works.
But we don’t, thank God, live under a dictatorship, and even emergencies and pandemics should avoid over-reaching and over-control with “for your own good” justifications when many enforcements clearly aren’t.
Just my thoughts in the for-what-it’s-worth department.