Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell said Monday during an afternoon news conference that “it’s going to be really difficult” for Oahu to advance to Tier 3 in time for the Thanksgiving holiday given the recent increase in coronavirus cases.

Oahu today recorded 76 new infections as cases steadily hovered between a low of 53 and a high of 108 within the past week. Tier 3 would allow for social gatherings of 10 people. Only social gatherings of five people are currently allowed.

“I believe we all hoped to get to Tier 3 on Thanksgiving Day,” Caldwell said. “But at this point, given the number of cases and the positivity rate, it’s going to be really difficult if not impossible. To get to Tier 3, you need 49 or fewer cases, you need a positivity rate of 2.5% or less. That’s going to be hard to do.”

Oahu moved to the less-restrictive Tier 2 of Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s four-tier economic recovery plan on Oct. 22. The mayor’s office says that to gauge whether Honolulu will move to a different tier, the city takes a “weekly assessment” of two key COVID-19 numbers each Wednesday. To move to Tier 3 from Tier 2, the 7-day average of new cases must be below 50 on two consecutive Wednesdays. Also, the 7-day average positivity rate, or percentage of tests coming back positive, must be below 2.5% on those two Wednesdays.

Today’s seven-day average case count for Oahu is 76 and the positivity rate was 2.9%, according to Caldwell.

“It would be a great gift to give to all of us if we can move to Tier 3 before the Christmas holidays,” Caldwell said. “But it really depends on what we do and how we act.”

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Hawaii health officials today reported 95 new coronavirus infections statewide, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 16,613 cases.

No additional deaths were reported today.

The official state Department of Health coronavirus-related death toll remains unchanged at 222, and includes 173 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 said today that the Big Island’s COVID-19 death toll is 49, however, state health officials have yet to verify coronavirus as a factor in 18 of those deaths.

The U.S. coronavirus death toll is more than 246,000 today.

The state Department of Health did not release its usual daily tally of coronavirus infections on Sunday as they changed their schedule for making the data public. Several weeks ago, the department switched the release time from noon to 3 p.m., but officials said they have decided to again “shift its data window this weekend.” The shift means that the data that would have been released Sunday will be included in Monday’s release.

Meanwhile, Gov. David Ige said today on Spotlight Hawaii that he plans to sign a new emergency proclamation that will clarify rules regarding the current statewide mask mandate to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Today’s new infection cases in Hawaii include 76 on Oahu, eight on the Big Island, seven on Maui, two on Kauai, and two Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state, according to the Health Department. As a result of updated information, one previous infection case from Maui was removed from the state’s tally.

Department officials said today’s new case count came from 3,933 COVID-19 tests, for a 2.2% statewide positivity rate.

Today’s total coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 14,337 on Oahu, 1,479 in Hawaii County, 450 on Maui, 106 on Lanai, 82 on Kauai, and 17 on Molokai. There are also 142 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

>> RELATED: Hawaii’s COVID numbers are climbing more slowly than the rest of the U.S.

Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,466 cases are currently considered active 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. The total number of active cases fell by 12 today.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,210 have required hospitalizations, with one new hospitalization on Oahu 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 1,208 hospitalizations within the state, 1,068 have been on Oahu, 71 on the Big Island, 58 on Maui, five each on Kauai and Lanai, and one on Molokai.

According to the latest data from the department’s Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard, a total of 63 patients with COVID-19 were in Hawaii hospitals as of Friday, with 14 in intensive care units and one on a ventilator.