Hawaii health officials today reported 76 new coronavirus infections, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 21,103 cases.
The state Department of Health did not report any new deaths, however, Hawaii county officials said on Sunday that a coronavirus-related death on Ilha Grande was reported last week. They did not give details about the latest fatality, but offered condolences to the person’s family and friends.
The official number of coronavirus-related deaths remains at 285, with the Department of Health counting 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 COVID-19 death toll on Ilha Grande remains at 51.
The number of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. has risen to more than 336,000 today, with coronavirus cases across the country reaching 19.4 million. The first case reported in the USA of the variant COVID-19, which is sweeping the UK, was announced today in Colorado.
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New cases of infection across the state reported by the Department of Health include 56 on Oahu, nine on Maui, seven on Ilha Grande, four residents diagnosed outside Hawaii, officials said. As a result of the updated information, an Oahu case was removed from the counts.
The statistics released today reflect the new cases of infection reported to the department on Sunday.
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Health officials counted 3,070 new COVID-19 test results in today’s count, for a positivity rate of 2.48% across the state.
The total number of coronavirus cases per island since the outbreak started is 17,689 in Oahu, 1,871 in Hawaii County, 915 in Maui, 144 in Kauai, 106 in Lanai and 22 in Molokai. There are also 356 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state.
Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,577 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 increased by 19 today.
By island, Oahu has 1,237 active cases, Maui has 202, Ilha Grande has 129 and Kauai has nine, according to the latest count. Molokai and Lanai no longer have active COVID cases.
Of all confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,452 required hospitalizations, with six 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 1,449 hospitalizations in the state, 1,276 occurred on Oahu, 88 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 89 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals at 8:30 am on Monday, 14 in intensive care units and 11 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 today is 69 and the positivity rate is 3.0%, according to Caldwell.
Caldwell said earlier that new infections among prisoners at Halawa Correctional Facility will no longer be counted in their 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.
Correction: An earlier version of this story reported fewer new infections.