Visitors to Washington DC from 27 'high-risk' states must quarantine: mayor

Visitors to Washington from 27 US states considered "high-risk" for coronavirus will have to self-quarantine for two weeks, the mayor said Monday.

Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the self-quarantine order on Friday and released the list of states considered "high-risk" on Monday.

The 14-day self-quarantine applies to anyone who has visited a "high-risk" state within the prior 14 days for non-essential activities.

A high-risk state is one where the seven-day moving average of daily new COVID-19 cases is 10 or more per 100,000 persons, the mayor's office said.

Visitors from the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia were exempted from the order.

There have been 11,780 coronavirus cases in Washington and 581 deaths.

The United States is the hardest-hit country in the world with 4.23 million cases of COVID-19 and nearly 147,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

© 2020 AFP