Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported three new coronavirus-related deaths and 82 additional infections, bringing the state’s total since the beginning of the pandemic to 410 deaths and 25,853 cases.
Two of the latest deaths occurred on Oahu and the third on Maui. No other details were immediately disclosed about the fatalities.
The official number of coronavirus-related deaths in the state includes 327 deaths on Oahu, 53 on the island of Hawaii, 26 on Maui, one on Kauai and three Hawaii residents who died outside the state.
The number of coronavirus-related deaths in the United States was almost 441,000 today.
New cases of infection across the state reported by the Department of Health include 59 on Oahu, 11 on Ilha Grande, eight on Maui and four residents diagnosed outside Hawaii, officials said.
The statistics released today reflect the new cases of infection reported to the department on Friday.
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The total number of coronavirus cases per island since the outbreak started is 20,923 in Oahu, 2,162 in Hawaii County, 1,734 in Maui, 178 in Kauai, 107 in Lanai and 25 in Molokai. There are also 724 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state. As a result of updated information, a case from Maui was reclassified to the island of Hawaii, state officials said today.
Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 1,412 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 44 today.
By island, Oahu has 1,040 active cases, Maui has 276, Ilha Grande has 90, Kauai has five and Lanai has one, according to the state’s latest count. Molokai has no active COVID cases.
Health officials counted 4,569 new results from the COVID-19 test in today’s count, for a positivity rate of 1.7% across the state. The state’s average 7-day positivity rate is 2.2%, according to Hawaii’s COVID-19 data panel.
Of all confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,696 required hospitalizations, with two new hospitalizations in Oahu 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 1,692 hospitalizations in the state, 1,484 occurred in Oahu, 99 in Maui, 96 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 75 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals on Friday morning, 20 in intensive care units and 15 in ventilators.
Health officials said that as of January 24, 106,654 vaccines have been administered out of 170,975 received by the state. Vaccinations administered by county are Honolulu, 68,521; Maui, 11,060; Hawaii, 10,459 and Kauai, 8,799. The total also included several thousand administered by the federal pharmacy program. State officials release updated vaccination numbers checked 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 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 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.