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Hawaii health officials reported one new coronavirus-related death on Oahu and 128 new infections statewide today, bringing the totals since the start of the pandemic to 220 deaths and 15,819 cases.
The official state Department of Health death toll is now 220, 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 236,000 today.
Today’s new infection cases in Hawaii include 108 on Oahu, 11 on the Big Island, two each on Kauai and Maui, and five Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of Hawaii, according to the health department.
Today’s total coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 13,704 on Oahu, 1,386 in Hawaii County, 423 on Maui, 106 on Lanai, 71 on Kauai, and 17 on Molokai. There are also 112 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.
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Hawaii health officials said today 1,273 infections are currently considered active cases statewide. Health officials have 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.
Health Department officials said the 128 positive tests came from of 6,174 new COVID-19 tests in today’s infection case tally for a 2.1% statewide positivity rate.
Of all the confirmed Hawaii cases, 1,157 have required hospitalizations, with 10 new hospitalizations— eight on Oahu and one each on Maui and the Big Island — 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 1,155 hospitalizations within the state, 1,022 have been on Oahu, 68 on the Big Island, 58 on Maui, three each on Kauai and Lanai, and one on Molokai.
According to the latest data from the Health Department’s Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard, a total of 75 patients with COVID-19 are in Hawaii hospitals, with 13 in intensive care units and eight 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, 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 82 and the positivity rate was 3.1% for Oahu, according to the mayor.
Caldwell issues a statement calling for Oahu residents to not let their guard down.
“Now is not the time to give up,” he said. “Going into the next few months we have an opportunity to keep the numbers down and continue moving forward. I know this is difficult. I am asking everyone , if you gather, please gather safely. Gather in groups of five or less for now. Wear your face coverings even when you’re around your close friends. This won’t be forever, but if we all do our part now we can save lives, keep our community healthy, keep our economy open, and work toward a more normal way of life.”
This breaking news story will be updated as more information becomes available.
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