Hawaii reports 44 new coronavirus infections statewide and no new deaths
JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
Shaka Santa and Tutu Mele were unveiled today wearing Aloha-style masks at their usual holiday perch at Honolulu Hale.
JAMM AQUINO / NOV. 30
A man self-administers a COVID-19 test at the Neal Blaisdell during Monday’s final free COVID-19 surge testing.
Hawaii health officials today reported 44 new coronavirus infections statewide, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 17,968 cases.
No new deaths were reported today as the state’s coronavirus-related death toll remains at 244.
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 269,000 today as the nation recorded over 13.6 million cases.
Today’s new infection cases in Hawaii include 32 on Oahu, five on Maui, six on the Big Island, and one resident diagnosed outside of the state, according to the Health Department. As a result of updated information, one out-of-state case was dropped from the counts.
The statistics released today reflect the new cases reported to the department through 11:59 p.m. Sunday.
Don't miss out on what's happening!
Stay in touch with top news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It's FREE!
Health officials counted 3,402 COVID-19 new test results, for a 1.29% statewide positivity rate.
The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 15,362 on Oahu, 1,605 in Hawaii County, 547 on Maui, 113 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai, and 18 on Molokai. There are also 217 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.
Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,243 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.” There were no changes today from Monday’s active cases.
Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,291 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 1,289 hospitalizations within the state, 1,138 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 56 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of noon Monday, with 24 in intensive care units and seven 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 64 and the positivity rate was 2.1%, according to Caldwell.
