Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported a new coronavirus-related death on Oahu and 48 new infections, bringing the state’s total since the start of the pandemic to 426 deaths and 26,856 cases.
No other information was immediately available about the latest death.
The official number of coronavirus-related deaths in the state includes 340 deaths on Oahu, 53 on the island of Hawaii, 29 on Maui, one on Kauai and three Hawaii residents who died outside the state.
Separately, the Navy said today that a sailor from Hawaii died of complications caused by COVID-19 in Virginia, where he was stationed. The sailor’s death was not recorded in the official state count.
The number of coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S. is more than 485,000 today, while the infection count across the country has risen to more than 27.6 million.
New cases of infection across the state reported by the Department of Health include 38 on Oahu, four on Maui, three on Ilha Grande and three residents diagnosed outside Hawaii, officials said.
The statistics released today reflect the new cases of infection reported to the department on Friday.
The total number of coronavirus cases per island since the outbreak started is 21,597 in Oahu, 2,216 in Hawaii County, 1,940 in Maui, 179 in Kauai, 108 in Lanai and 26 in Molokai. There are also 790 residents of Hawaii who have been diagnosed outside the state. As a result of updated information, two cases in Oahu have been dropped from official state counts, officials said today.
Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 949 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 34 today.
By island, Oahu has 681 active cases, Maui has 211, Ilha Grande has 52, Kauai has 179, Lanai has 108 and Molokai has 26, according to the state’s latest count.
Health officials counted 5,314 new COVID-19 test results in today’s count, for a positivity rate of 0.8% across the state. The state’s 7-day average positivity rate is 0.9%, according to Hawaii’s COVID-19 data panel.
Of all confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,796 required hospitalizations, with four new hospitalizations – three in Oahu and Maui – 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 1,796 hospitalizations in the state, 1,567 occurred in Oahu, 112 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 45 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals on Friday morning, 13 in intensive care units and 10 in ventilators.
Health officials said that as of February 7, 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. State officials release updated and verified vaccination numbers every Wednesday.
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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 each Wednesday. To move to Level 3 from Level 2, the average 7 days 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 case count for Oahu is 38 and the average seven-day positivity rate is 1.0%, according to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi. The mayor announced on Friday that Oahu will remain at Level 2 until March 15, unless county metrics fall below levels that would allow him to move to another level.
This breaking news will be updated as more information becomes available.