Hawaii reports 149 new coronavirus infections, bringing statewide total to 21,956
Hawaii health officials today reported 149 new coronavirus infections, bringing the state’s total since the start of the pandemic to 21,956 cases.
No new deaths were recorded today, leaving the statewide death toll at 289.
The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 224 fatalities on Oahu, 45 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 Friday that the Big Island’s COVID-19 death toll remained at 51, but state officials have not verified coronavirus as a factor in six of those fatalities.
The U.S. coronavirus death toll rose above 350,000 today with total coronavirus cases across the nation now topping 20 million.
Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 88 on Oahu, 30 on Maui, two each on the Big Island and Kauai, and 27 state residents diagnosed outside of Hawaii, officials said.
The statistics released today reflect the new infection cases reported to the department on Friday.
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Health officials counted 3,151 COVID-19 new test results in today’s tally, for a 4.4% statewide positivity rate. The state’s 7-day average positivity rate is 3.3%.
The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 18,278 on Oahu, 1,922 in Hawaii County, 1,061 on Maui, 150 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai and 22 on Molokai. There are also 417 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.
Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,655 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 81 today.
By island, Oahu has 1,231 active cases, Maui has 1,061, the Big Island has 119, and Kauai has 13, according to the state’s latest tally. Molokai and Lanai no longer have active COVID cases.
Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,479 have required hospitalizations, with no 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 1,476 hospitalizations within the state, 1,300 have been on Oahu, 88 on the Big Island, 75 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 101 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of Wednesday, with 11 in intensive care units and 9 on ventilators.
Oahu moved to the less-restrictive Tier 2 of Honolulu’s four-tier economic recovery plan on Oct. 22. 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 97 and the positivity rate is 4.3%, according to Mayor Rick Blangiardi, who is serving his first full day in office today.