State health officials record 14 coronavirus-related deaths, including 10 previously reported by Hawaii County
TIM WRIGHT / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-ADVERTISER.
The Yukio Okutsu State Veterans Home in Hilo has been the site of a major cluster of COVID-19 cases.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARADVERTISER.COM
Honolulu Fire Department Capt. Jon Omori is tested for COVID-19 by nurse practitioner and research nurse Cris Milne during Thursday’s news conference regarding a new testing lab at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine.
UPDATE: 4:05 p.m.
The Hawaii Department of Health released additional details on the 14 coronavirus-related deaths reported earlier today.
Ten of the 14 were residents of Hawaii island nursing homes whose deaths were previously reported by Hawaii County but had been pending verification by the department. They include eight men and two women, all age 70 and older.
The Yukio Otsuku Veterans Home and the Life Care Center, both in Hilo, experienced two major Big Island clusters, and account for the majority of the 40 coronavirus-related deaths reported by Hawaii County. State health officials are still working on verification of COVID-19 as a factor in 12 of those deaths.
In addition, four Oahu deaths were reported today: a man over age 80 who was a community care home resident, and three women, also over age 80 who were hospitalized. All four had underlying health conditions, officials said this afternoon.
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Hawaii Department of Health officials reported a total of 14 new coronavirus-related deaths, including 10 from Big Island nursing homes previously reported by Hawaii County and the Hilo Medical Center.
The latest fatalities also include four on Oahu and bring the official statewide COVID-19 death toll to 203.
No further details about the latest reported fatalities were immediately released.
The Health Department’s official state death toll includes 156 fatalities on Oahu, 28 on Hawaii island, 18 on Maui, and one Kauai resident who died on the mainland. Hilo County officials have said that the Big Island’s COVID-19 death toll is now at 40, however state health officials now have yet to verify coronavirus as a factor in 12 of those Big Island deaths.
The U.S. coronavirus death toll is over 221,000 today.
Health officials also reported 78 new coronavirus infections bringing the totals since the start of the pandemic to 14,233 cases. As the result of updated information, one case from Hawaii island was removed from the state’s counts, health officials said.
As of today, 2,842 infections are considered active cases statewide, with a total of 11,188 patients now classified by health officials as “released from isolation,” or nearly 79% 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 38 new releases today.
Today’s new infection cases include 65 on Oahu, nine on Hawaii island, and four in Maui County. On Tuesday, state Health Department officials announced the first four confirmed COVID-19 cases on Lanai.
Health Department officials said they counted 4,329 tests in today’s count for a 1.8% statewide positivity rate.
Today’s total coronavirus cases by county since the start of the outbreak are 12,617 on Oahu, 1,081 in Hawaii County, 417 in Maui County and 60 in Kauai County. There are also 48 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.
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By county, Honolulu has seen 9,949 patients released from isolation, Hawaii County has had 804 releases, Maui has seen 377 patients released. Kauai has one active case.
Of all the confirmed Hawaii cases, 1,033 have required hospitalizations, with 8 new hospitalizations reported today by state health officials.
Two hospitalizations in the statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 1,031 hospitalizations within the state, 914 have been on Oahu, 58 each on the Big Island and Maui, and one on Kauai.
According to the latest data from the Health Department, a total of 81 patients with COVID-19 are in Hawaii hospitals, with 19 in intensive care units and 13 on ventilators.
Oahu is expected to move to the less-restrictive Tier 2 of Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s four-tier economic recovery plan on Thursday. To move to Tier 2 , Honolulu’s seven-day average case count had to stay below 100 and its seven-day average positivity rate had to be below 5% for 14 consecutive days before Thursday. Oahu’s seven-day average case count was 64 today, the 22nd straight day below 100, while the seven-day average positivity rate was 2.9%, the 28th straight day below 5%.
