Hawaii reports 134 new coronavirus infections statewide

Hawaii health officials today reported 134 new coronavirus infections statewide, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 20,351 cases.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll remains at 282 with no new deaths reported today.

The official state Department of Health coronavirus-related death toll includes 218 fatalities on Oahu, 44 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 50, but health officials have yet to verify coronavirus as a factor in several of those Hawaii island deaths.

The U.S. coronavirus death toll was more than 317,000 today.

>> RELATED: Oahu may revert to more-restrictive Tier 1, Caldwell warns as COVID-19 cases climb

Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 104 on Oahu, 13 on the Big Island, 14 on Maui, one on Kauai, and two Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state, officials said.

Today was the fifth straight day of triple-digit new infection counts reported by the state.

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

Health officials counted 3,193 COVID-19 new test results, for a 4.2% statewide positivity rate.

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 17,158 on Oahu, 1,816 in Hawaii County, 913 on Maui, 138 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai, and 22 on Molokai. There are also 326 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,688 cases are considered to be active. Health officials say they consider infections reported in the past 14 days to be a “proxy number for active cases.” The number of active cases in the state rose by 56 today.

By island, Oahu has 1,323 active cases, Maui has 175, Big Island has 170, and Kauai has 17, according to the latest tally. Molokai no longer has an active COVID case. Lanai has no active cases.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,413 have required hospitalizations, with one hospitalization reported today by state health officials.

Three hospitalizations in the statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 1,410 hospitalizations within the state, 1,242 have been on Oahu, 85 on the Big Island, 70 on Maui, seven 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 8:30 a.m. today, with 17 in intensive care units and 10 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 must be below 2.5% on those two Wednesdays.

Today’s seven-day average case count for Oahu is 105 and the positivity rate is 3.6%, according to Caldwell.

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