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Two passengers who arrived from California on Monday were sent back to the Mainland after airport officials found they had no destination on Maui.
Maui County Mayor Michael Victorino said that one of the visitors was planning to go to the homeless resource center.
"What we did at that point (was) give them a choice," Victorino said. "Either you go home or you'll be arrested. Both chose to return home."
The more stringent screening process at the airport is a combination of state and county stay-at-home rules and mandatory 14-day quarantines for all out-of-state and interisland travelers. Arriving passengers are being required to fill out declaration forms stating the purpose of their visit and their place of lodging, which is then confirmed by tourism and airport officials. About 20 National Guard personnel also have been at Kahului Airport since Monday to help with medical screening of passengers.
Through the screening process, officials discovered the two passengers who had no destination. Victorino didn't say which cities they had flown in from but said the flights came from California. Hawaii Tourism Authority funds were used to fly the two people back to the Mainland.
On Monday, total arrivals by air across the state were down to 513, but visitor arrivals have been on the rise, going from 89 on Thursday to 133 on Monday. Maui visitor numbers have jumped from one on Thursday to 11 on Friday, eight on Saturday, 15 on Sunday and two on Monday.
When asked about the increase in visitor counts, Victorino pointed out that the numbers have been jumping but have mostly been single digits on Maui over the past week. He said some of the visitors may be timeshare owners who "either have to use it or lose it, so they've been going straight to their particular lodging facilities, their timeshares, and spending their 14 days in quarantine there."
However, as cases of COVID-19 have continued to rise statewide and local police continue to issue citations, Victorino said stricter enforcement may be on the horizon in addition to the emergency stay-at-home orders already in effect.
One of those measures includes roving checkpoints by the Maui Police Department. As of Tuesday, officers had issued 114 citations and made six arrests over the course of a week, Victorino said. Citations spiked on Saturday and Sunday and were most common in popular beach areas -- 38 in Lahaina and 35 in Kihei for the week, according to data from the county.
"We have passed the stage of warning," Victorino said. "Many times the same people have been warned more than once, and I think the police have decided that after warning someone a number of times or seeing the same people coming out and some of the same issues that have been coming up time in and time out, they're now citing these same individuals."
On Tuesday, 23 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Hawaii, taking the statewide total to 410.
There were 20 new cases in Honolulu County, four new cases in Maui County and one new case in Kauai County, for a total of 25. The state Joint Information Center did not know why the statewide and county breakdowns did not match up. However, the number of cases with pending locations decreased from nine Monday to seven Tuesday, and the JIC said it was possible that these two cases had been confirmed in certain counties.
Statewide, there are now 312 cases in Honolulu County, 48 in Maui County, 23 in Hawaii County and 18 in Kauai County. Locations are pending in seven cases, and two residents have been diagnosed outside of Hawaii. Victorino said Tuesday that there were no cases on Lanai and that he was not aware of additional confirmed cases on Molokai.
On Tuesday, 396 drive-thru tests were conducted on Molokai after two employees at Friendly Market Center tested positive, Victorino said. More testing is planned in Central and West Maui and Lanai this week, and Victorino said that officials hope to test between 1,250 to 1,500 on Thursday and Friday to try and identify clusters of cases on island.
Maui County also looks to hold food and mask distributions. Food distribution events are slated for Central and South Maui starting at 10 a.m. Thursday at the War Memorial Gym and South Maui Community Park Gym parking lots. There are about 300 bags of food available for South Maui residents and 600 to 700 for Central Maui residents; Victorino said the county is looking at Haiku and West Maui for next week.
The county also has plans to distribute masks to the public, starting with kupuna in care homes. Victorino said he would announce a schedule today and that the county has 5,000 masks available with 10,000 more on the way.
* Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.