Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported three new coronavirus-related deaths and 82 additional infections, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 410 fatalities and 25,853 cases.
Two of the latest deaths were on Oahu and the third was on Maui. No further details were immediately released on the fatalities.
The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 327 fatalities on Oahu, 53 on Hawaii island, 26 on Maui, one on Kauai, and three Hawaii residents who died outside the state.
The U.S. coronavirus-related death toll was nearly 441,000 today.
Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 59 on Oahu, 11 on the Big Island, eight on Maui, and four residents diagnosed outside of Hawaii, officials said.
The statistics released today reflect the new infection cases reported to the department on Friday.
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The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 20,923 on Oahu, 2,162 in Hawaii County, 1,734 on Maui, 178 on Kauai, 107 on Lanai and 25 on Molokai. There are also 724 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state. As a result of updated information, one case from Maui was re-categorized to Hawaii island, state officials said today.
Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 1,412 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 decreased by 44 today.
By island, Oahu has 1,040 active cases, Maui has 276, the Big Island has 90, Kauai has five, and Lanai has one, according to the state’s latest tally. Molokai has no active COVID cases.
Health officials counted 4,569 new COVID-19 test results in today’s tally, for a 1.7% statewide positivity rate. The state’s 7-day average positivity rate is 2.2%, according to the Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard.
Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,696 have required hospitalizations, with two new hospitalizations on Oahu 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 1,692 hospitalizations within the state, 1,484 have been on Oahu, 99 on Maui, 96 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 75 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of Friday morning, with 20 in intensive care units and 15 on ventilators.
Health officials said that as of Jan. 24, 106,654 vaccines have been administered of the 170,975 received by the state. The administered vaccinations by county are Honolulu, 68,521; Maui, 11,060; Hawaii, 10,459 and Kauai, 8,799. The total also included several thousand administered under the federal pharmacy program. State officials release the verified 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 70 and the seven-day average positivity rate is 2.6%, according to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi.
Blangiardi has 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.