Hawaii health officials today reported six new coronavirus-related deaths and 153 new infections, bringing the state’s total since the start of the pandemic to 342 deaths and 25,154 cases.
Five of the deaths occurred on Oahu and one on Maui. No further details were available on the latest fatalities.
The official number of coronavirus-related deaths in the state includes 271 deaths on Oahu, 46 on the island of Hawaii, 21 on Maui, one on Kauai and three Hawaii residents who died on the mainland.
The number of coronavirus-related deaths in the United States was more than 418,000 today.
New cases of infection across the state reported by the Department of Health include 103 on Oahu, 34 on Maui, eight on Ilha Grande and eight residents diagnosed outside of 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 20,436 in Oahu, 2,122 in Hawaii County, 1,605 in Maui, 177 in Kauai, 106 in Lanai and 25 in Molokai. There are also 683 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state. As a result of updated information, two cases of Oahu were reclassified to the island of Hawaii and, once, the case of Oahu and one from Ilha Grande were removed from the counts, officials said today.
Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 1,700 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 36 today.
By island, Oahu has 1,246 active cases, Maui has 328, Ilha Grande has 116, Kauai has 10, according to the state’s latest count. Lanai and Molokai have no active COVID cases.
Health officials counted 5,853 new results from the COVID-19 test in today’s count, for a positivity rate of 2.5% statewide. The state’s average 7-day positivity rate is 2.4%, according to the Hawaii COVID-19 data panel.
Of all confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,660 required hospitalizations, with three 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 1,656 hospitalizations in the state, 1,452 occurred on Oahu, 97 on Maui, 94 on Ilha Grande, 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 96 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals on Friday morning, with 21 in intensive care units and 18 on ventilators.
Health officials said that by January 18, 70,095 vaccines had been administered out of 154,150 received by the state. County vaccinations are Honolulu, 39,886; Maui, 10,195; Hawaii, 7,011; and Kauai, 5,328. The total also included 7,675 administered by the federal pharmacy program.
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 case count for Oahu is 78 and the average seven-day positivity rate is 3.0%, according to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi.
Blangiardi said last week that he hoped 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 on Level 2, and retail companies would be able to operate at full capacity, instead of 50% of capacity at Level 2.