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Hawaii sees 76 new coronavirus infections and no new deaths

JAMM AQUINO / DEC. 20
                                Honolulu resident Kristine San Diego, middle, fills out paperwork for COVID-19 test at Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus on North School Street. Health officials counted 3,070 COVID-19 new test results in today’s tally, for a 2.48% statewide positivity rate.
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JAMM AQUINO / DEC. 20

Honolulu resident Kristine San Diego, middle, fills out paperwork for COVID-19 test at Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus on North School Street. Health officials counted 3,070 COVID-19 new test results in today’s tally, for a 2.48% statewide positivity rate.

Hawaii health officials today reported 76 new coronavirus infections, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 21,103 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 336,000 today as coronavirus cases across the nation topped 19.4 million. The first reported U.S. case of the COVID-19 variant, which has been sweeping across the United Kingdom, was announced today in Colorado.

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Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 56 on Oahu, nine on Maui, seven on the Big Island, four residents diagnosed outside of Hawaii, 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 Sunday.

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Health officials counted 3,070 COVID-19 new test results in today’s tally, for a 2.48% statewide positivity rate.

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 17,689 on Oahu, 1,871 in Hawaii County, 915 on Maui, 144 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai and 22 on Molokai. There are also 356 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,577 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 increased by 19 today.

By island, Oahu has 1,237 active cases, Maui has 202, the Big Island has 129, 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, 1,452 have required hospitalizations, with six 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 1,449 hospitalizations within the state, 1,276 have been on Oahu, 88 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 89 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of 8:30 a.m. Monday, with 14 in intensive care units and 11 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 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.

Correction: An earlier version of this story reported a lower number of new infections.
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