The state’s mask mandate comes to an end in two weeks and Gov. David Ige is reflecting on decisions made during the pandemic.
He told HPR the most difficult decision was imposing the mandatory quarantine on all incoming travelers, knowing that visitor travel to the islands would be shut down to virtually nothing.
The governor also responded to criticism for not doing enough contact tracing or testing during the early days of the pandemic.
He said the experience is helping the state prepare for a better response moving forward.
"We are trying to build the infrastructure, knowing that there will be another pandemic," Ige said. "And I just wanted to note that I think Hawaiʻi was better prepared than most states because of SARS and some of the other infectious diseases that we had to deal with."
"I know that we were criticized for not having sufficient capacity, but we're the only state that continued to do contact tracing throughout the entire pandemic," he said. "We’re expanding connections of all of the labs that are doing testing to be able to handle more data for the next infectious disease or pandemic that comes our way."
When asked what he was most proud of, the governor said it was the community’s willingness to sacrifice personal conveniences in order to protect the well-being of others.
This interview originally aired on The Conversationon March 10, 2022. The Conversation airs at 11 a.m., Monday through Friday, on HPR-1.
