The town issued a directive on March 25 that all people arriving in town should self-quarantine for 14 days, to help slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
This affects all travelers arriving in Charlestown from out-of-state, whether by plane or car and whether they are year-round or seasonal residents. The entire announcement is shown below. This is asking for the cooperation of people coming to town and is not a legal order to self-quarantine.
Concern about people arriving in Block Island, possibly carrying the disease without symptoms, caused the town (New Shoreham) to issue a shelter-in-place order to reduce human interaction and the spread of COVID-19. People in other vacation communities in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have expressed grave concern about possible disease spread by people moving from their full-time residences to vacation homes. This request in the town of Charlestown maintains free movement of people to their vacation homes while asking for isolation for a period of time.
A recent article on our website explains the importance of reducing human interaction.
Watching or reading news reports about hospitals in New York and other cities being overwhelmed with critically ill people should be a sobering reinforcement of the importance of following this request.
