Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported 71 new coronavirus infections, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 25,339 cases.
There were no new deaths reported today, but on Monday the Health Department added 60 additional coronavirus-related deaths to the statewide tally that now stands at 401. However, Health Department officials this morning revised the total additional deaths down to 59 after a “data cleaning process.”
Health officials uncovered the additional deaths after a review of the department’s Electronic Death Registration System, Health Director Dr. Libby Char said in a news release. The deaths occurred between August through December. Forty-nine deaths were on Oahu, seven on Hawaii island and three on Maui, according to a Hawaii COVID-19 Joint Information Center spokesperson.
The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 320 fatalities on Oahu, 53 on Hawaii island, 24 on Maui, one on Kauai, and three Hawaii residents who died on the mainland. The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency said the Big Island’s COVID-19 death toll remained at 51, but state officials have not verified coronavirus as a factor in six of those fatalities. Hawaii County has reported no coronavirus-related deaths in the past three weeks.
The U.S. coronavirus-related death toll was more than 423,000 today.
Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 61 on Oahu, eight on Maui, one on the Big Island, and one resident diagnosed outside of Hawaii, officials said. As a result of updated information, seven cses from Oahu were removed from the counts.
The statistics released today reflect the new infection cases reported to the department on Sunday.
The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 20,578 on Oahu, 2,129 in Hawaii County, 1,634 on Maui, 178 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai and 25 on Molokai. There are also 689 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.
Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 1,612 cases were considered to be active. Officials say they consider infections reported in the past 14 days to be a “proxy number for active cases.” The number of active cases in the state decreasedby 44 today.
By island, Oahu has 1,200 active cases, Maui has 303, the Big Island has 99, Kauai has 10, according to the state’s latest tally. Lanai and Molokai have no active COVID cases.
Health officials counted 2,346 new COVID-19 test results in today’s tally, for a 3.03% statewide positivity rate. The state’s 7-day average positivity rate is 2.5%, according to the Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard.
Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,669 have required hospitalizations, with five new hospitalizations reported today by state health officials.
Four hospitalizations in the statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 1,665 hospitalizations within the state, 1,460 have been on Oahu, 98 on Maui, 94 on the Big Island, seven on Kauai, five on Lanai and one on Molokai.
According to the latest information from the department’s Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard, a total of 89 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of Monday morning, with 21 in intensive care units and 17 on ventilators.
Health officials said that as of Sunday, 70,095 vaccines have been administered of the 154,150 received by the state. The vaccinations by county are Honolulu, 39,886; Maui, 10,195; Hawaii, 7,011; and Kauai, 5,328. The total also included 7,675 administered under the federal pharmacy program. State officials release the updated vaccination numbers each Wednesday.
Oahu moved to the less-restrictive Tier 2 of Honolulu’s four-tier economic recovery plan on Oct. 22. To gauge whether Honolulu will move to a different tier, the city takes a “weekly assessment” of two key COVID-19 numbers each Wednesday. To move to Tier 3 from Tier 2, the 7-day average of new cases must be below 50 on two consecutive Wednesdays. Also, the 7-day average positivity rate must be below 2.5% on those two Wednesdays.
Today’s seven-day average case count for Oahu is 81 and the seven-day average positivity rate is 3.0%, according to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi.
Blangiardi said he hoped to stay in Tier 2, a four-tiered framework established by former Mayor Kirk Caldwell. Under Tier 3, social gatherings of up to 10 would be allowed, up from 5 under Tier 2, and retail businesses would be able to operate at full capacity, rather than 50% capacity under Tier 2.
This breaking news story will be updated as more information becomes available.