In place for more than two months now, the 14-day quarantine tied to most air travel here has served as a drastic yet effective shield against coronavirus spread. Hawaii ranks among states with the lowest per capita infection rates, and has the lowest mortality rate in the nation.

With prepping underway to lift this requirement for interisland travel next week — and eventually impose less extreme conditions on travelers arriving on trans-Pacific flights — health officials and others are bracing for an expected increase in COVID-19 cases.

While much of the quarantine shield must be lowered for the sake of reopening our stalled economy, the state is rightly assembling a lineup of screening and case-tracking tactics that aim to effectively manage future upticks in caseload — and prevent the possibility of a surge that could reverse much-needed progress toward the so-called “new normal.”

Starting June 16, in lieu of quarantine, interisland flight passengers may fill out a form specifying travel details, and undergo temperature checks and a cross-check against a quarantine database. Given Hawaii’s cocooned status, the less intense safeguards seem adequate, and will help build a framework for tracking virus spread.

While the state cannot mandate that travelers undergo COVID-19 testing, officials late last week said that additional plans are in the works to offer testing to travelers meeting certain criteria. Further, Hawaii should look to other states, such as Alaska, for possible strategies.

Until Saturday, that state required out-of-state travelers to self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. Now, the quarantine is fully lifted for these travelers if they get tested no more than 72 hours before departure to Alaska, and show negative test results to screeners upon arrival.

If an out-of-state traveler does not obtain a test first, he or she will be asked to take a test at the airport and self-quarantine until the results come back negative. Alaska residents traveling outside the state for five or fewer days are being asked to take a test at the airport when they return to Alaska and quarantine until the results come back.

In Hawaii and elsewhere, continued strides in economic reopening are dependent on public health conditions: the count of cases, health-care system capacity, and ability to keep pace with demand for prioritized testing and contact tracing. In regard to contact tracing, it’s encouraging that state health officials are building a cadre large enough to respond to a sizable spike in cases.

When the initial wave of COVID-19 cases peaked locally, the state Department of Health expanded its established contact-tracing team to include a total of more than 100 workers — including volunteers from University of Hawaii and staff from various DOH divisions with backgrounds in public health, epidemiology, medicine and nursing.

Starting today, a round of training will get underway, through a UH-DOH partnership, to ready 320 people for admission to the contact-tracing cadre by mid-July. With subsequent training rounds, state Health Director Bruce Anderson said, it appears possible to build a team that can handle a surge delivering up to 1,000 new cases a day.

Given that the peak period during the recent outbreak averaged 30 cases per day, such a projection may seem almost far-fetched. Unfortunately, it should be regarded as a red-flag reminder that in the absence of viable treatment or vaccine, the coronavirus threat remains.

Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the total count of cases nationwide had exceeded 1.8 million. As Hawaii’s air travel ramps up, bringing more passengers to the islands, ample protection efforts must be poised to manage this public health threat.