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Hawaii records 2 new coronavirus-related deaths on Oahu and 65 additional infections statewide

JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
                                Vehicles drive up at the first mass COVID-19 vaccination clinic at Pier 2 on Monday in Honolulu. Over 27,000 are expected to receive the Pfizer/Biotech COVID-19 vaccine at the site, which is being overseen by Hawaii Pacific Health.

JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM

Vehicles drive up at the first mass COVID-19 vaccination clinic at Pier 2 on Monday in Honolulu. Over 27,000 are expected to receive the Pfizer/Biotech COVID-19 vaccine at the site, which is being overseen by Hawaii Pacific Health.

UPDATE:

The two latest reported coronavirus-related fatalities were a woman in her 90s and a man in his 80s,, both of whom were hospitalized and had underlying health conditions, according to the state Department of Health.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

Hawaii health officials today reported two new coronavirus-related deaths on Oahu and 65 new infections statewide, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 324 fatalities and 24,546 cases.

No further details were immediately available regarding the latest coronavirus-related deaths.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 255 fatalities on Oahu, 45 on Hawaii island, 20 on Maui, one on Kauai, and three Hawaii residents who died on the mainland. The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency said Monday 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. Hawaii County has reported no coronavirus-related deaths in the past two weeks.

The U.S. coronavirus-related death toll surpassed 400,000 today with total infection cases across the nation were more than 24 million.

Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 45 on Oahu, nine on Maui, six on the Big Island, and five residents diagnosed outside of Hawaii, officials said.

The statistics released today reflect the new infection cases reported to the department on Sunday. The daily case counts from Sunday are typically lower than the rest of the week due to reduced testing data on the weekends.

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 20,018 on Oahu, 2,088 in Hawaii County, 1,487 on Maui, 175 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai and 25 on Molokai. There are also 647 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state. As a result of updated information, health officials said one Oahu case was removed from the total counts today.

Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 2,184 cases were considered to be active. 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 48 today.

By island, Oahu has 1,608 active cases, Maui has 398, the Big Island has 150, Kauai has 25 and Molokai has three, according to the state’s latest tally. Lanai has no active COVID cases.

Health officials counted 3,275 new COVID-19 test results in today’s tally, for a 1.8% statewide positivity rate. The state’s 7-day average positivity rate is 2.5%, according to the Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,617 have required hospitalizations, with three new hospitalizations — two on Maui and one on Oahu — reported today by state health officials.

Four hospitalizations in the statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 1,613 hospitalizations within the state, 1,417 have been on Oahu, 93 on the Big Island, 90 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 96 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of this morning, with 13 in intensive care units and 10 on ventilators.

State health officials said on Wednesday that 40,386 people have been vaccinated since Jan. 9 — including 25,613 in Honolulu County, 4,182 in Maui County, 4,251 in Hawaii County, and 2,740 in Kauai County. The vaccination numbers are updated weekly.

RELATED STORY: Kupuna get inoculated at Pier 2 as Hawaii mass vaccinations begin

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 90 and the seven-day average positivity rate is 3.1%, according to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi.

Blangiardi said last week he hoped to stay in Tier 2, a four-tiered framework established by former Mayor Kirk Caldwell. Under Tier 3, social gatherings of up to 10 would be allowed, up from 5 under Tier 2, and retail businesses would be able to operate at full capacity, rather than 50% capacity under Tier 2.


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


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