No one in Hawaii has been tested for coronavirus as health officials wait for kits from CDC

Hawaii health officials continue to reassure the public that the coronavirus is not circulating in the islands, but they have not tested a single person in the state for the deadly disease.

Meanwhile, Japanese news outlets are reporting at least two new cases of coronavirus in Aichi prefecture related to contact with a Japanese couple who tested positive after traveling to Hawaii Jan. 28 to Feb. 7. The Japanese man remains hospitalized, though his wife has recovered, state officials said.

“It’s a head-scratcher that the Department of Health has not sent one test to the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) yet. We’re not waiting for a rainy day,” said Rep. John Mizuno (D, Kalihi Valley-Kamehameha Heights), chairman of the House Health Committee. “Similar to SARS, there’s going to be a percentage of people with the novel coronavirus who are asymptomatic, meaning they don’t have any symptoms, yet they’re still carriers. They can infect other people with the virus. It doesn’t make sense not to test because it’s a false sense of security.”

The Health Department has not identified anyone locally who had “prolonged close contact” with the Japanese couple as they continue to monitor 41 people who recently visited China through phone calls, texts or video conferences. Those people who may have had some exposure to the new virus are able to leave their homes or hotel rooms, but are being told to avoid other people, the DOH said. One man, who visited Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, is under mandatory quarantine until Feb. 22 at a base on Pearl Harbor.

Health officials have not sent any test samples to the CDC for those in home monitoring or quarantine for the virus because they do not meet more than one of the criteria set by the federal agency, which includes having flu-like symptoms, traveling to China or close contact with an infected person.

“It’s hard for me to say there are no cases in Hawaii,” Mizuno said. “It’s a blanket statement, we don’t have any because we didn’t test for it. We need to be vigilant to protect our people. To me it would be lot safer for peace of mind that we do all we can to test. We don’t want this to become a tidal wave and hurt all our people because we’re too laxed on testing.”

Hawaii is in a unique situation because the time it takes to send a sample to the CDC in Atlanta for testing and get it back exceeds more than a week, Gov. David Ige said at a news conference Wednesday.

“The ability to test in Hawaii should be a national priority just because of our isolation,” he said.

The CDC is supposed to redistribute test kits to Hawaii by early to mid-March, after sending out faulty ones earlier this month. The DOH said it has offered to beta test the new kits to get earlier access to testing, which is critical because Honolulu is one of 11 U.S. airports designated by the federal government to receive flights from China.

Currently there are 15 cases of coronavirus, or COVID-19, in the U.S. and all but two individuals, who had “close sustained contact” with an infected person, traveled to Hubei province.

“From an international perspective, it is a national disaster,” said Lt. Gov. Josh Green. He is recommending Hawaii use tests from Japan while awaiting kits from the CDC. “We’re very close allies with Japan and we’re obviously seeing a lot of travel between our two destinations so we should rely on each other. We’re trying to keep it completely out of Hawaii because we depend totally on tourism.”