Anyone coming into Connecticut, New Jersey or New York from states with COVID-19 hotspots will have to self-quarantine for 14 days, the governors of the three states jointly announced on Wednesday as swathes of the nation experience surges of the virus.

“We have taken our people … through hell and back, and the last thing we need to do right now is subject our folks to another round,” Gov. Phil Murphy said Wednesday morning. He was joined by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Connecticut Gov. Ted Lamant.

States with “high infection rates,” according to Cuomo, are those with 10 cases per 100,000 people, or “10 percent of the total population” that are testing positive for a seven-day basis.

Currently, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Utah and Texas meet those thresholds, the New York governor added.

“The Northeast Region has taken this seriously and that’s allowed us as a region to power through and get our positivity rates low,” Lamant said.

But the joint announcement largely appears to lack teeth.

Murphy, at a press conference in Trenton later that day, called it a “strong advisory,” and said that the onus was on people entering New Jersey to follow the self-quarantine.

But Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli, according to Murphy, has the authority to handle individual “instances of flagrant non-compliance.”

Cuomo said that would come in the form of fines in New York, but Murphy did not indicate whether the administration would take that route.

New Jersey and New York – specifically New York City – were among the hardest hit by the virus when it first swept across the nation in March and April. The response was to put those states in near-total lockdown—shutting down most businesses, prohibiting most travel and enacting stay-at-home orders.

While controversial, and thrusting the nation into some of the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, the measures have shown many signs of success. Hospitalizations have gone down, as have new cases and fatalities.

That’s allowed the three states to gradually roll back the restrictions on businesses.

In New Jersey, outdoor dining was finally allowed on June 15, followed by nail and hair salons on June 22. Indoor dining, malls and amusement parks can reopen on July 2. 

Murphy has warned that should cases begin to creep up, he would ultimately put the brakes on reopenings, promising a crackdown on any establishments that allow crowded, tightly packed gatherings to continue unchecked.

The three metrics that the Murphy administration uses to gauge the extent of the virus in the state are the rates of transmission, positivity and hospitalizations. Should numbers trend in the wrong direction, the governor said he would stop the reopening, but he has not indicated what specific numbers would trigger such a decision.

As of June 22, the positivity rate from tests was 2.83 percent, and the transmission rate was 0.81 percent; there were 1,196 COVID-19 patients in New Jersey’s hospitals.

“There is absolutely no reason for our rate of transmission to begin to creep back up because people have become complacent in social distancing, or are crowding around bars and restaurants unmasked,”  Murphy said on Tuesday. “We can’t get our economy back to where it was if our hospitals fill back up with COVID-19 patients because some people mistakenly thought they were invincible.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 3:31 p.m. EST on June 24, 2020, to include additional information regarding the self-quarantine announcement and updated metrics for New Jersey COVID-19 positivity and transmission rates, and the number of patients hospitalized with the virus.