Good thread.
This is a real tough situation.
Word of caution on the numbers. While Hawaii has been very fortunate, it is / was quite hard to test optimally: long turnaround times and limited kits for low-symptom folks. Many doctors in Hawaii reported so much classic Covid, weeks before they were allowed to test, in patients who ultimately never got tested. But regardless, their “serious” case levels have been refreshingly low per capita.
This is a plague of unknowns for Hawaii especially, who relies on tourism at 35K daily at peak times from all directions. Unlike an endemic and epidemic, you cannot contain a pandemic in a short window of months. And getting it wrong, especially this one, can devastate the island in ways that the mainland would not face.
What, when, and how is so unclear to even those of us treating it daily. Swab testing is invasive and uncomfortable and impractical for all travelers. And antibody tests are a big question given the inherent immune response delay and high false negative rate (you’d rather it be the other way: a good test must be sensitive, even if sometimes false positive). And, as a PP stated, they are of potential limited value anyway. Even vaccines will be an unknown given the 3 strains and general history of at best partial effectiveness in similar situations. The Lt Gov was doling out uncooked antibody and pre-flight testing schemes that the local news ran with but the truth is the actual effectiveness is in doubt.
Open too soon: more lockdown with strained resources nearing disaster.
Open too late: unrecoverable economic disaster.