UPDATE: 5:25 p.m.

Hilo Medical Center said this evening that the Big Island’s coronavirus-related death toll is now 32, with two deaths reported at the Life Care Center, the second Hilo nursing home to see a cluster of cases.

Medical center officials said 27 of the island’s COVID-19 deaths were residents of the Yukio Okutsu State Veterans Home, while three fatalities are from the greater community

A total of 12 COVID-positive patients are hospitalized on the island, including two in the intensive care unit.

The state’s official coronavirus death toll counts just 15 Big Island deaths with Hawaii health officials saying the other reported cases are pending verification of cause of death.

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Lt. Gov. Josh Green reported today that Hawaii has recorded three more coronavirus-related deaths and 70 new infections statewide, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 156 deaths and 12,804 cases.

The state Health Department confirmed the 70 new cases and three latest deaths on Maui early this afternoon. No further details on the three deaths were immediately release, including when they occurred.

On Saturday, state health officials recorded 11 fatalities but said eight of the deaths occurred between Aug. 15 and Sept. 15, and were just recently validated as COVID-19-related.

As of Saturday, the Health Department had yet to officially count more than a dozen of the latest deaths at the Yukio Okutsu State Veterans Home in Hilo, which has been the site of a major COVID-19 cluster.

Hawaii County, separately today, reported the first COVID-19 death at the Life Care Center in Hilo, the second nursing home in the area to be experiencing a major cluster of virus cases. The latest death brings the island’s reported coronavirus death toll to 30, with 27 of the fatalities among residents of the veterans home. However, the state’s official death toll included only 15 Hawaii island fatalities as of Saturday.

In addition to the 15 Big Island deaths, the official death toll includes 128 on Oahu, and 12 on Maui, while one fatality was a Kauai resident who died on the mainland.

The U.S. death toll is nearly 210,000 today.

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Today’s new infection cases include 53 on Oahu, 15 on the Big Island, and two on Maui, officials said.

On Saturday, the state reported 43 new infections on the Big Island. Hawaii County officials said today that the high increase of new cases on the island was mostly due to clusters at the University of Nations in Kona and the Life Care Center in Hilo. They said the county and the state Health Department are working with both facilities to ensure that the virus is contained and to provide care for the infected individuals.

County officials also said the outbreak demonstrates the need for following the preventive polices such as face coverings, distancing, and avoiding social gatherings.

Today’s total coronavirus cases by county since the start of the outbreak are 11,505 on Oahu, 810 in Hawaii County, 396 in Maui County, and 59 in Kauai County. There are also 34 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

As of today, 2,202 infections are considered active cases statewide, with a total of 10,446 patients now classified by health officials as “released from isolation,” or nearly 82% of those infected, according to the state’s official count. The category counts those infected people who have met the criteria for being released from isolation. Officials reported 31 new releases today.

By county, Honolulu has seen 9,393 patients released from isolation, Hawaii County has had 633 releases, Maui has seen 363 patients released. Kauai has one active case.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii cases, 885 have required hospitalizations, with four new hospitalizations — two each on Oahu and the Big Island — reported today, health officials said.

Two hospitalizations in the statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 887 hospitalizations in the state, 786 have been on Oahu, 56 on Maui, 44 on Hawaii island, and one on Kauai.

Earlier today, Green released the preliminary coronavirus tally numbers said in a Facebook post and said there are 128 COVID-19 patients in the hospital in Hawaii. According to state health figures from Saturday, there were 39 coronavirus patients in intensive care units and 29 virus patients on ventilators in Hawaii.

Officials counted 1,963 new tests in today’s tally, with today’s 70 positive results representing 3.6% of the total tested.

Of the 305,925 coronavirus tests conducted so far by state and clinical laboratories in Hawaii since the start of the outbreak, a total of 4.2% have been positive.

Oahu’s seven-day average case count must stay below 100 and its positivity rate must be below 5% for 14 consecutive days to move to the next level of economic opening. Oahu’s seven-day average case count was 82 today, the fifth straight day below 100, while the seven-day average positivity rate was 3.3% today, the eleventh straight day below 5%.