Hawaii health officials today reported 120 new coronavirus infections across the state – the same number of cases recorded on Christmas Day, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 20,888 cases.
The official number of deaths related to the state’s coronavirus remains at 285, with no new deaths reported today.
The official number of coronavirus-related deaths from the state Department of Health includes 221 deaths on Oahu, 44 on the island of Hawaii, 17 on Maui, one on Kauai and two Hawaii residents who died on the mainland. The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency said today that the number of COVID-19 deaths on Ilha Grande remains at 50, but health officials have yet to confirm coronavirus as a factor in six of those deaths on the island of Hawaii.
The number of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. has exceeded 330,000 today, while coronavirus cases across the country have reached 18.8 million.
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New cases of infection across the state reported by the Department of Health include 84 on Oahu, 20 on Maui, three on Ilha Grande, three on Kauai and 10 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state, officials said. As a result of updated information, a case from the island of Hawaii was recategorized for Oahu and a case of Oahu was removed from the counts.
The statistics released today reflect the new cases of infection reported to the department on Thursday.
Health officials counted 1,764 new COVID-19 test results in today’s count, for a statewide 6.8% positivity rate.
The total number of coronavirus cases per island since the outbreak started is 17,533 in Oahu, 1,859 in Hawaii County, 875 in Maui, 142 in Kauai, 106 in Lanai and 22 in Molokai. There are also 351 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state.
Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,687 cases were considered active. Health 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 decreased by 46 today.
By island, Oahu has 1,330 active cases, Maui has 193, Ilha Grande has 153 and Kauai has 11, according to the last count. Molokai and Lanai no longer have active COVID cases.
Of all confirmed cases of infection in Hawaii, 1,445 required hospitalizations, with three new hospitalizations reported today by state health officials.
Three hospitalizations in the state count are Hawaii residents who have been diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 1,442 hospitalizations in the state, 1,271 occurred on Oahu, 86 on Ilha Grande, 72 on Maui, seven on Kauai, five on Lanai and one on Molokai.
According to the latest information from the Department of Hawaii’s COVID-19 data panel, a total of 73 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals at 8:30 am on Thursday, 13 in intensive care units and 12 in ventilators.
Oahu moved to the less restrictive level 2 of Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s four-level economic recovery plan on October 22. 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 case count for Oahu is 95 and the positivity rate is 3.3%, according to Caldwell.
On Monday, Caldwell said that new infections among prisoners at the Halawa Correctional Facility will no longer be counted in his metrics for the recovery plan. A recent prison grouping had raised Honolulu’s infection count and threatened to send Oahu back to Level 1, the most restrictive of the mayor’s four-tier system.