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Hawaii reports 120 new coronavirus infections, bringing total to 20,888; No new COVID-19 deaths

JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
                                Some portions of Oahu saw some rain showers today as drivers navigated wet road conditions along South Beretania as pictured.
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JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM

Some portions of Oahu saw some rain showers today as drivers navigated wet road conditions along South Beretania as pictured.

Hawaii health officials today reported 120 new coronavirus infections statewide — the same number of cases recorded on Christmas Day, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 20,888 cases.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll remains at 285 with no new deaths reported today.

The official state Department of Health coronavirus-related death toll includes 221 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 six of those Hawaii island deaths.

The U.S. coronavirus death toll topped 330,000 today as coronavirus cases across the nation topped 18.8 million.

>> RELATED: More Hawaii residents struggle to pay bills, survey indicates

Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 84 on Oahu, 20 on Maui, three on the Big Island, three on Kauai, and 10 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state, officials said. As a result of updated information, one Hawaii island case was recategorized to Oahu and one Oahu case was removed from the counts.

The statistics released today reflect the new infection cases reported to the department on Thursday.

Health officials counted 1,764 COVID-19 new test results in today’s tally, for a 6.8% statewide positivity rate.

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 17,533 on Oahu, 1,859 in Hawaii County, 875 on Maui, 142 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai and 22 on Molokai. There are also 351 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,687 cases were 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 decreased by 46 today.

By island, Oahu has 1,330 active cases, Maui has 193, the Big Island has 153, and Kauai has 11, according to the latest tally. Molokai and Lanai no longer have active COVID cases.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,445 have required hospitalizations, with three new hospitalizations 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 1,442 hospitalizations within the state, 1,271 have been on Oahu, 86 on the Big Island, 72 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 73 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of 8:30 a.m. Thursday, with 13 in intensive care units and 12 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 95 and the positivity rate is 3.3%, according to Caldwell.

On Monday, Caldwell said new infections among prisoners at Halawa Correctional Facility will no longer be counted in his metrics for the recovery plan. A recent cluster at the prison had been boosting Honolulu’s infection count and threatening to send Oahu back to Tier 1, the most restrictive of the mayor’s four-tier system.

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