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Hawaii reports 3 additional coronavirus-related deaths on Oahu and 92 new infections statewide

CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / NOV. 19
                                A masked pedestrian walks past a mural of Quan Yin, the Bodhisattva of compassion and mercy, on North Hotel Street in Chinatown last week.
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CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / NOV. 19

A masked pedestrian walks past a mural of Quan Yin, the Bodhisattva of compassion and mercy, on North Hotel Street in Chinatown last week.

UPDATE: 4:35 p.m.

The three people whose coronavirus-related deaths were announced earlier today all had underlying conditions and had been hospitalized, state Department of Health officials announced today.

They included two men, one in his 70s and the other in his 60s, and a woman in her 70s.

The latest fatalities bring the statewide official coronavirus-related death toll to 240.

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Hawaii health officials today reported three additional coronavirus-related deaths on Oahu and 92 new infections statewide, bringing the totals since the start of the pandemic to 240 fatalities and 17,708 cases.

No further information was immediately released on the latest fatalities.

The official state Department of Health coronavirus-related death toll includes 188 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 today 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 264,000 today.

Today’s new infection cases in Hawaii include 71 on Oahu, five each on Kauai and the Big Island, four on Maui, and seven Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state, according to the Health Department. As a result of updated information, two cases on Oahu were removed from the statewide counts.

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

Department officials counted 5,663 COVID-19 new test results, for a 1.6% statewide positivity rate.

>> RELATED: Mayors seek travel rule changes amid surging coronavirus cases

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 15,170 on Oahu, 1,574 in Hawaii County, 521 on Maui, 110 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai, and 17 on Molokai. There are also 210 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,332 cases are considered active statewide. Health officials say they consider infections reported in the past 14 days to be a “proxy number for active cases.” The total number of active cases fell by nine today.

Active cases include 1,095 on Oahu, 122 on the Big Island, 80 on Maui, and 35 on Kauai, according to the state.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,287 have required hospitalizations, with one new hospitalization 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 1,285 hospitalizations within the state, 1,135 have been on Oahu, 77 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 2.7%, according to Caldwell.


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


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