Hawaii reports 100 new coronavirus cases, bringing statewide total to 15,572
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Wileen Biscaino, left, and Roxanne Whalen, put together bags of food at Ewa Puuloa District Park as the Hawaii Foodbank conducted a pop-up food distribution on Wednesday. The severe economic hit to Hawaii from the coronavirus pandemic has greatly increased the need for food assistance in the islands.
Hawaii health officials reported 100 new coronavirus infections statewide today, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 15,572 cases.
No additional deaths were reported today.
The official state Department of Health death toll remains 219, with 170 fatalities on Oahu, 31 on Hawaii island, 17 on Maui, and one Kauai resident who died on the mainland. The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency says that the Big Island’s COVID-19 death toll is 48, however, state health officials now have yet to verify coronavirus as a factor in 17 of those deaths.
The U.S. coronavirus death toll is over 234,000 today.
Today’s new infection cases in Hawaii include 66 on Oahu, 24 on the Big Island, seven Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of Hawaii, one case each on Kauai, Maui, and Lanai, according to the health department. As a result of updated information, one case from Oahu was removed from the tally.
Today’s total coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 13,510 on Oahu, 1,356 in Hawaii County, 415 on Maui, 105 on Lanai, 68 on Kauai, and 17 on Molokai. There are also 101 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.
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>> RELATED STORY: Honolulu appears unlikely to advance to Tier 3
Hawaii health officials said 1,244 infections are currently considered active cases statewide. The number of active cases is much lower than the 3,296 active infections reported on Wednesday. Health officials today replaced the “released from isolation” statistic, which had been used to calculate the number of active cases, with “cases in the past 14 days.” They said this new classification serves as a “proxy number for active cases” and is based on infections reported in the past 14 days. Officials said the change “resolves classification issues for cases unable to be reached or who are out of jurisdiction, for whom precise release from isolation date may not be possible to determine. It is also not influenced by lags in data entry.”
Health Department officials said they counted 94 positive tests out of 4,031 new COVID-19 tests in today’s infection case tally for a 2.3% statewide positivity rate.
Of all the confirmed Hawaii cases, 1,138 have required hospitalizations, with 13 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 1,136 hospitalizations within the state, 1,007 have been on Oahu, 66 on the Big Island, 57 on Maui, three on Kauai, two on Lanai, and one on Molokai.
According to the latest data from the Health Department’s Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard, a total of 68 patients with COVID-19 are in Hawaii hospitals, with 13 in intensive care units and nine on ventilators.
Oahu moved to the less-restrictive Tier 2 of Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s four-tier economic recovery plan on Oct. 22, and must stay in that tier for four weeks. To move to Tier 3 no earlier than Nov. 19, Oahu must maintain a seven-day average case count of 49 or fewer cases, and a seven-day average positivity rate of 2.49% or lower for 14 consecutive days at the end of the four-week period. Today’s seven-day average case count is 71 and the positivity rate was 2.9% for Oahu.
This breaking news story will be updated as more information becomes available.
