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Hawaii reports 2 new coronavirus-related deaths on Oahu and 123 additional infections statewide

JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
                                A woman opens a self-administered COVID-19 test kit as a Honolulu police officer watches at the Waikiki Shell on Monday.
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JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM

A woman opens a self-administered COVID-19 test kit as a Honolulu police officer watches at the Waikiki Shell on Monday.

Hawaii health officials today reported two coronavirus-related deaths on Oahu and 123 new coronavirus infections statewide, bringing the totals since the start of the pandemic to 233 fatalities and 17,220 cases.

No further information was immediately released on the latest fatalities.

The official state Department of Health coronavirus-related death toll includes 182 fatalities on Oahu, 32 on Hawaii island, 17 on Maui, and two Hawaii residents who died on the mainland. On Saturday, health officials announced seven new deaths, all on Oahu. The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency said Saturday that the Big Island’s COVID-19 death toll remains at 49, however, state health officials have yet to verify coronavirus as a factor in 17 of those deaths.

The U.S. coronavirus death toll was more than 256,000 today as the nation surpassed 12 million cases.

Today’s new infection cases in Hawaii include 97 on Oahu, 14 on the Big Island, six on Kauai, four on Maui, and two Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state, according to the Health Department. As a result of updated information, one previous infection case from Oahu was removed from the state’s tally.

The statistics released today reflect the new cases reported to the department through 11:59 p.m. Friday.

Department officials said today’s new case count came from 5,342 COVID-19 tests, for a 2.3% statewide positivity rate.

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Today’s total coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 14,794 on Oahu, 1,541 in Hawaii County, 484 on Maui, 106 on Lanai, 97 on Kauai, and 17 on Molokai. There are also 181 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,336 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 four today.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,255 have required hospitalizations, with 16 new hospitalizations — 15 on Oahu and one on 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 1,253 hospitalizations within the state, 1,106 have been on Oahu, 75 on the Big Island, 60 on Maui, six on Kauai, five on Lanai, and one on Molokai.

According to the latest data from the department’s Hawaii COVID-19 data dashboard, a total of 72 patients with COVID-19 were in Hawaii hospitals as of noon Friday, with 23 in intensive care units and 10 on ventilators.

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 2.7%, according to Caldwell.


This breaking news story will be updated as more information becomes available.


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