Hawaii virus funding request grows to $10.5M

Key state senators Thursday added to Gov. David Ige’s $7.215 million funding request to prepare Hawaii for a potential outbreak of the new coronavirus, bringing the total amount to $10.568 million.

Dr. Sarah Kemble, deputy division chief of the state Health Department’s disease outbreak and control division, told members of the senate Ways and Means Committee that testing may be available “soon.”

“We may be able to proceed with testing in the near future, so we’re no longer looking at weeks away,” Kemble said. “Hopefully, it will be soon.”

Hawaii has not had any confirmed coronavirus cases, but also has not tested anyone.

“I anticipate in the next week, with this changing guidance, we will likely have our first person under investigation,” Kemble said.

“Up to now we’ve been somewhat limited by the guidance coming out of CDC (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta) in terms of who should be tested and who can legally be tested under the emergency use authorization that FDA (the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) had cleared,” Kemble said. “Now the recommendation is to test any person who is hospitalized with fever and lower respiratory illness who has traveled to any of the geographic areas that have been recognized by CDC as having sustained community transmission.”

The five countries are China, Japan, Iran, South Korea and Italy.

Members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee grilled representatives from Hawaii’s tourism industry and the state’s Departments of Defense, Transportation, Health and Education about their plans for a wide range of scenarios, including private jets landing on Maui and Kona; a planned convention influx of 21,000 Rotarians from around the world in June; incoming fishing boats and cruise liners; potential cases in remote areas like Hana — and schoolchildren who “are already panicking because their classmate next to them may be hanabata, you know what I mean?” said state Sen. Kurt Fevella (R, Ewa Beach-Iroquois Point). “If we let it go forward, we gonna see empty schools. … The teachers are panicking, too.”

There were few answers to the senators’ specific concerns and scenarios. But Linda Chu Takayama, Ige’s chief of staff, told senators that key departments are regularly communicating with one another and meeting to update emergency plans.

Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hara, director of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, said a major outbreak could result in activating the Hawaii National Guard, but offered few specifics.

Whether “distance” orders may be needed for “social gatherings will all be part of a robust plan,” Hara said.

The Ways and Means Committee voted to increase Ige’s original $7.12 million coronavirus request in Senate Bill 75.

The amended bill provides $6.6 million to the Department of Health, $2.788 million to the Department of Transportation and $1.18 million to the Department of Defense.

SB 75 is expected to move to the full Senate for third reading on Tuesday.