Sumner La Criox

Affordable COVID-19 tests for travelers and more effective fines for face mask violators are among ideas for reopening Hawaii to tourism floated by one of the state’s leading economists.

Sumner La Croix, economics professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization research fellow, discussed the three keys in his talk “Reopening the Hawaii Tourism Economy in the Age of COVID-19,” an online presentation Thursday hosted by the Hawaii Economic Association.

“I think they’re pretty clear,” La Croix said. “It’s safer behavior by

Hawaii residents, it’s better performance by Hawaii government and it’s putting in place a predeparture and in-Hawaii testing of air passengers that reassures Hawaii residents that tourists coming to visit are safe, that they are relatively unlikely to have the COVID virus.”

Despite calls to diversify Hawaii’s economy, La Croix said the state likely won’t fall below a 20 percent reliance on the industry because “this is a great place to visit.”

La Croix said tourism currently represents about 25 percent, or $2 billion per month, of the state’s economy, with direct, indirect and spillover spending. Maui County leans more heavily on tourism, especially from domestic travelers, UHERO has said.

In the 1980s and ’90s, Hawaii’s economy was about 35 percent reliant on tourism, according to La Croix.

“We actually have been diversifying the economy,” he said. “The bottom line is that tourism is still a big part of the economy. I do believe we need to take more efforts to diversify the economy in the sense of encourage other industries that Hawaii is likely to have a comparative advantage in. But it can’t be done overnight.”

In order to reopen Hawaii to tourism amid COVID-19, La Croix highlighted safer behavior by Hawaii residents, whom he said are making poor decisions by treating peers, friends and family as low-risk contacts. If tourists don’t feel Hawaii is safe, many will not travel here.

The economist floated a low-cost penalty for not wearing a mask, saying a $150 to $200 fine, similar to a parking ticket, may be more effective than Honolulu’s current penalties of up to a $5,000 fine or a year in jail. He said violators of a countywide mask mandate in Chatham, Mass., get a $300 fine.

“Draconian penalties that allow a court date are neither realistic nor effective,” he said.

Instead of solely relying on law enforcement or the state Department of Health, the economist suggested tapping University of Hawaii’s approximately 450 trained contact tracers for enforcement. He said that perhaps Honolulu and other counties could use CARES Act money to hire tracers in issuing citations.

Secondly, La Croix said communication, metrics, contact tracing and enforcement need to be improved among state agencies, moving them from reactive to proactive.

“The DOH and other state agencies really failed to build enough capacity to test, contact trace, isolate and enforce quarantines; this led to problems when we had outbreaks. They spread far beyond where they needed to spread,” he said.

Thirdly, the predeparture and in-Hawaii testing of air passengers is vital for reopening, La Croix said.

When the state implemented the 14-day quarantine on trans-Pacific passengers March 21, it led to a 99 percent decline in tourism, he said.

The state has since discussed a pretravel testing program, which would allow travelers to bypass the quarantine with evidence of a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of departure. Initially slated to begin Aug. 1, the program was postponed to Sept. 1 due to a surge in Oahu cases.

La Croix said the program may be postponed again.

“The Oahu surge is putting a lot of pressure on state resources,” La Croix said in an email to The Maui News. “Given the state has yet to issue details of the Sept. 1 opening, a delay would not surprise me.”

He said Maui and other Neighbor Islands that have lower cases could push for direct flights from the Mainland.

“There’s no reason Maui and Kauai shouldn’t open on Sept. 1 because the epidemic on Oahu has not been controlled,” he said.

In discussing testing types, La Croix said PCR tests, which the state is proposing for the pretravel program, may remain scarce and costly (he estimated $100-$150 per test). He asked whether Hawaii should explore cheaper saliva tests.

While less accurate, it would allow for more frequent testing, and more testing leads to increased detection, he said.

“We need to look beyond the expensive PCR test and start planning now to use some of the cheaper saliva tests to screen tourists in 2021,” the presentation said.

Oceanit, Hawaii’s leading technology firm, is developing a saliva-based antigen test that uses a DNA aptamer, which closely binds to the virus and is easy to scale, according to La Croix’s presentation. A patient spits in a cup at home and gets results in three to 10 minutes. The price is $20 and earliest availability is anywhere between late fall this year to winter next year.

Tests of this method are underway at The Queen’s Medical Center on Oahu, he said.

La Croix also talked about paper-strip tests, which are $1 to $2 per test and allow people to spit on a take-home strip, put it in a vial and get results in 10 minutes. While less effective in detecting the overall presence of COVID-19 than the PCR test, it is equally effective in picking up infectious people, he said.

Overall, the economist said that Hawaii’s ability to host and welcome visitors depends on how well the state controls the epidemic and how confident residents are that tourists are relatively COVID-19 free.

“Unless we control our epidemic/reopen tourism, Hawaii faces a depression in 2021 as federal aid is phased out,” La Croix’s presentation said.

Joe Kent, executive vice president at the Honolulu-based Grassroot Institute of Hawaii who attended the online talk, said in order to reopen tourism, state leaders need to decide if the long-term goal is to eradicate the virus or to develop what is known as herd immunity.

Herd immunity occurs when enough people have developed immunity to an infectious disease that the risk of further community transmission is either eliminated or significantly reduced, according to the MD Anderson Cancer Center. This requires a certain percentage of the population to have been exposed and infected with the disease so that they develop immunity with antibodies. These antibodies not only protect the person who has them from reinfection for a certain period of time, they also prevent them from passing along the disease to others.

“It’s hard to imagine tourism opening fully if the goal is nearly to eradicate the virus in the islands,” Kent told The Maui News. “It seems finding a safe way to develop a herd immunity, coupled with access to testing, may be the only way to bring tourism back fully.”

* Kehaulani Cerizo can be reached at kcerizo@mauinews.com.