Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported a new coronavirus-related death and 95 new infections, bringing the state’s total since the start of the pandemic to 424 deaths and 26,675 cases.
No additional information was available about the latest death on Oahu.
The official number of coronavirus-related deaths in the state includes 338 deaths on Oahu, 53 on the island of Hawaii, 29 on Maui, one on Kauai and three Hawaii residents who died outside the state.
The number of coronavirus-related deaths in the United States is more than 473,000 today, with the national count rising to 27.3 million.
New cases of infection across the state reported by the Department of Health include 63 on Oahu, 19 on Maui, three on Ilha Grande, one on Molokai and nine residents diagnosed outside Hawaii, officials said.
The statistics released today reflect the new cases of infection reported to the department on Tuesday.
The total number of coronavirus cases per island since the outbreak started is 21,484 in Oahu, 2,206 in Hawaii County, 1,901 in Maui, 179 in Kauai, 109 in Lanai and 26 in Molokai. There are also 770 residents of Hawaii who have been diagnosed outside the state. As a result of the updated information, one case from Maui was recategorized for residents diagnosed outside the state, two cases on Oahu and two cases outside Hawaii were removed from the counts, officials said today.
Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 1,078 cases were considered 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 has decreased by seven today.
By island, Oahu has 782 active cases, Maui has 222, Ilha Grande has 67, Kauai has three, Lanai has two and Molokai has one, according to the state’s latest count.
Health officials counted 5,184 new results from the COVID-19 test in today’s count, for a positivity rate of 1.83% across the state. The state’s average 7-day positivity rate is 1.4%, according to Hawaii’s COVID-19 data panel.
Of all confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,775 required hospitalizations, with nine new hospitalizations reported today by state health officials.
Four hospitalizations in the state count are Hawaii residents who have been diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 1,771 hospitalizations in the state, 1,551 occurred in Oahu, 107 in Maui, 100 in Ilha Grande, seven 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 52 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals on Wednesday morning, 14 in intensive care units and 12 in ventilators.
Health officials said that as of Sunday, 218,997 vaccines had been administered out of the 288,050 received by the state. Of the vaccines administered, 201,553 were given to the general public and 17,444 were distributed through the federal pharmacy program, officials said. As of Sunday, nearly 11% of Hawaii’s general population and 47% of residents 75 and older have received at least one dose, they said. State officials release updated and verified vaccination numbers every Wednesday.
Oahu moved to the less restrictive Tier 2 of Honolulu’s four-tier economic recovery plan on October 22. 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 to Level 3 from Level 2, the 7-day average of new cases must be less than 50 on two consecutive Wednesdays. In addition, the average 7-day positivity rate should be less than 2.5% on those two Wednesdays.
The average seven-day Oahu case count is 50 and the seven-day average positivity rate is 1.8%, according to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi. Blangiardi said he hopes to remain at Level 2, a four-level structure established by former Mayor Kirk Caldwell. Under Level 3, social gatherings of up to 10 would be allowed, 5 at Level 2, and retail companies would be able to operate at full capacity, instead of 50% of capacity at Level 2.
This breaking news will be updated as more information becomes available.