Kauai County Mayor Derek Kawakami joined the COVID-19 Care Conversation to share updates from the Garden Isle.

Kauai is preparing to reopen interisland travel following Gov. David Ige’s announcement on Monday to lift the mandatory 14-day quarantine for interisland travelers on June 16.

Kawakami said and his team are “a little bit on edge,” but they comfortable with the county’s testing and contact tracing capabilities. He encouraged Kauai residents to continue the sanitation and social distancing habits that proved to be effective in keeping Kauai’s infection rate low.

Hawaii “has done a great job in managing the spread of COVID-19. The state is relatively safe, but the time to be complacent and let your guard down is not now,” Kawakami said. “We must be even more diligent.”

Kawakami said he is eagerly waiting on news of the neighbor island’s allotment of the state’s federal CARES Act funding. While there may be concerns at the state level with regards to the counties ability to appropriately spend the funds, Kawakami said Kauai will have no problem abiding by guidelines and parameters.

“Kauai knows disasters. We know disaster response well,” he said, referring to the island’s resiliency despite the many disasters it has faced over the years.

Watch here and comment through our Facebook page. Join us tomorrow when Dr. Leslie Chun, CEO of Hawai‘i Pacific Health Medical Group, will be our guest.

The COVID-19 Care Conversation, sponsored by Hawai’i Executive Collaborative and Hawaii Pacific Health, airs live every weekday at 10:30 a.m. on the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Facebook page. Yunji de Nies and Ryan Kalei Tsuji discuss the latest news, resources and community concerns about the coronavirus outbreak in Hawaii.