Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported a new coronavirus-related death and more than 85 new infections, bringing the state’s total since the beginning of the pandemic to 444 deaths and 27,838 cases.
Details of new cases by island and the exact number of new infections – usually available around noon – were not immediately available, as state health officials have not yet released the numbers online as of 1:30 pm. in a tweet today, 33 new cases have been reported on Oahu.
No other information was immediately available about the latest death, which Blagiardi said in a tweet today it was reported on Oahu.
The official number of coronavirus-related deaths in the state includes 353 deaths on Oahu, 53 on the island of Hawaii, 34 on Maui, one on Kauai and three Hawaii residents who died outside the state.
The number of coronavirus-related deaths in the United States today is over 524,000 and the infection count across the country is over 28.9 million.
The statistics released today reflect the new cases of infection reported to the department on Thursday.
The total number of coronavirus cases per island since the outbreak started is 22,086 in Oahu, 2,264 in Hawaii County, 2,315 in Maui, 184 in Kauai, 108 in Lanai and 27 in Molokai. There are also 854 residents of Hawaii who have been diagnosed outside the state.
Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 674 cases were considered active. Officials say they regard infections reported in the past 14 days as a “proxy number for active cases”. The number of active cases in the state has increased by 35 today.
By island, Oahu has 346 active cases, Maui has 287, Ilha Grande has 37 and Kauai has four. Molokai and Lanai have no active cases.
Of all confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,898 required hospitalizations, with five new hospitalizations reported today by state health officials.
Seven hospitalizations in the state count are Hawaii residents who have been diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 1,891 hospitalizations in the state, 1,635 occurred in Oahu, 141 in Maui, 101 in Ilha Grande, eight in Kauai, five in Lanai and one in Molokai.
According to the latest information from the Department of Hawaii’s COVID-19 data panel, a total of 27 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals on Friday morning, five in intensive care units and three on ventilators.
The Hawaii state’s COVID-19 vaccine summary said on Friday that 391,116 vaccines were administered out of the 496,050 received by the state. About 16.1% of the general population of Hawaii received at least one dose of the vaccine, while about 64% of people aged 75 and over received a dose.
Of the vaccines administered, 367,622 were given to the general public and 23,494 were distributed through the federal pharmacy program, officials said.
Oahu moved to the less restrictive Level 3 of the city’s four-tier economic recovery plan on Thursday, after being at Level 2 since October 22. Level 3 allows for social and outdoor recreational meetings of up to 10 people, and restaurants for 10 people sitting at a table, out of five now. Level 3 also allows funeral services with up to 25 participants and group exercise classes indoors with up to 10 participants. The capacity of the gym can increase to 50%. Restaurants and spiritual services can operate at full capacity, as long as the establishments stay 6 feet away.
To assess whether Honolulu will move to a different level, the city does a “weekly assessment” of two main COVID-19 numbers every Wednesday. To move from Tier 3 to less restrictive Tier 4, the 7-day average of new cases must be less than 20 on two consecutive Wednesdays. In addition, the average 7-day positivity rate should be less than 1% on those two Wednesdays. The earliest Oahu could move to Level 1 would be at the end of March, as it needs to stay on each level for at least four weeks.
The average seven-day Oahu case count is 26 and the seven-day average positivity rate is 1.0%, according to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi.
This breaking news will be updated as more information becomes available.