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Hawaii sees 46 new coronavirus infections; no new deaths

CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / DEC. 27
                                Beachgoers hit the sand at Ala Moana Regional Park on Sunday after a previous day of rainfall.
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CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / DEC. 27

Beachgoers hit the sand at Ala Moana Regional Park on Sunday after a previous day of rainfall.

Hawaii health officials today reported 46 new coronavirus infections, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 21,028 cases.

The state Department of Health reported no new deaths, however Hawaii County officials said Sunday that one coronavirus-related death on the Big Island was reported over the past week. They gave no details on the latest fatality but offered condolences to the person’s family and friends.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll remains at 285, with the Department of Health counting 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 the Big Island’s COVID-19 death toll remained at 51.

The U.S. coronavirus death toll rose above 334,000 today as coronavirus cases across the nation topped 19.2 million.

>> RELATED: Hawaii tennis champion Jane Pang dies of COVID-19

Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 30 on Oahu, 13 on Maui, two on the Big Island, one on Kauai, officials said. As a result of updated information, one Oahu case was was removed from the counts.

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

Health officials counted 2,343 COVID-19 new test results in today’s tally, for a 1.96% statewide positivity rate.

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 17,634 on Oahu, 1,864 in Hawaii County, 906 on Maui, 144 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai and 22 on Molokai. There are also 352 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,558 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 143 today.

By island, Oahu has 1,216 active cases, Maui has 201, the Big Island has 132, and Kauai has nine, according to the latest tally. Molokai and Lanai no longer have active COVID cases.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,446 have required hospitalizations, with one new 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 1,443 hospitalizations within the state, 1,271 have been on Oahu, 87 on the Big Island, 72 on Maui, seven on Kauai, five on Lanai and one on Molokai.

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 69 and the positivity rate is 3.0%, according to Caldwell.

Caldwell previously 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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