Hawaii reports 4 additional coronavirus-related deaths and 57 new infections statewide
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / NOV. 22
A man wearing a mask walks toward the Hawaiian Airlines check-in at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport last week. The state tourism industry is still reeling despite a pre-travel coronavirus testing program that began in mid-October.
Hawaii health officials today reported four new coronavirus-related deaths — two each on Oahu and Hawaii island — and 57 new COVID-19 infections statewide, bringing the totals since the start of the pandemic to 244 deaths and 17,840 cases.
No details were immediately available about the latest deaths, but the Big Island deaths were likely among those fatalities previously reported by the county that have been pending verification by the state.
The official state Department of Health coronavirus-related death toll includes 190 fatalities on Oahu, 34 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 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 15 of those deaths.
The U.S. coronavirus death toll was more than 266,000 today as the nation recorded over 13.3 million cases.
Today’s new infection cases in Hawaii include 47 on Oahu, four on the Big Island, three on Maui, one on Kauai, and two Hawaii resident diagnosed outside the state, according to the Health Department. As a result of updated information, health officials said, one case from out-of-state was reclassified to Oahu, and one case from Oahu was removed from the state’s counts.
The statistics released today reflect the new cases reported to the department through 11:59 p.m. Friday.
Department officials counted 5,517 COVID-19 new test results, for a 1% statewide positivity rate.
The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 15,264 on Oahu, 1,595 in Hawaii County, 533 on Maui, 112 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai, and 17 on Molokai. There are also 213 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.
Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,254 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 dropped by 50 today.
Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,288 have required hospitalizations, with one new hospitalization 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 1,286 hospitalizations within the state, 1,135 have been on Oahu, 78 on the Big Island, 61 on Maui, six on Kauai, five on Lanai, and one on Molokai.
According to the latest information from the department’s Hawaii COVID-19 data dashboard, a total of 60 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of noon Friday, with 17 in intensive care units and 14 on ventilators.
Oahu moved to the less-restrictive Tier 2 of Honolulu 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 68 and the positivity rate was 2.1%.
