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Hawaii reports 2 additional coronavirus-related deaths on Oahu and 120 new infections statewide

CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARADVERTISER.COM
                                Computers remain bagged at the check-in for international airlines at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport on Sunday. Hawaii’s tourism industry has seen an increase in visitors in the past month but is still well below year-ago levels.
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CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARADVERTISER.COM

Computers remain bagged at the check-in for international airlines at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport on Sunday. Hawaii’s tourism industry has seen an increase in visitors in the past month but is still well below year-ago levels.

Hawaii health officials today reported two additional coronavirus-related deaths on Oahu and 120 new infections statewide, bringing the totals since the start of the pandemic to 237 fatalities and 17,618 cases.

No further information was immediately released on the latest fatalities.

The official state Department of Health coronavirus-related death toll includes 185 fatalities on Oahu, 32 on Hawaii island, 17 on Maui, one on Kauai, and two Hawaii residents who died on the mainland. The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency said Tuesday 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 263,000 today.

Today’s new infection cases in Hawaii include 92 on Oahu, 14 on Maui, 11 the Big Island, and three on Kauai, according to the Health Department.

As a result of updated information, two cases on Oahu and one infection on Maui were removed from the state’s counts today.

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

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The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 15,101 on Oahu, 1,569 in Hawaii County, 517 on Maui, 106 on Lanai, 105 on Kauai, and 17 on Molokai. There are also 203 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,341 cases are 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 rose by one today.

Active cases include 1,096 on Oahu, 132 on the Big Island, 82 on Maui, and 31 on Kauai, according to the state.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,286 have required hospitalizations, with 17 new hospitalizations — 16 on Oahu and one on Hawaii 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 1,094 hospitalizations within the state, 1,1135 have been on Oahu, 76 on the Big Island, 61 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 60 patients with COVID-19 were in Hawaii hospitals as of noon Wednesday, with 17 in intensive care units and 12 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 86 and the positivity rate was 2.6%, according to Caldwell.


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


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