Hawaii reports 3 new coronavirus-related deaths on Oahu and 119 additional infections statewide

Hawaii health officials today reported three new coronavirus-related death on Oahu and 119 new infections, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 328 fatalities and 24,739 cases.

The latest coronavirus-related deaths included two men — one in his 60s, the other in his 80s — and a woman in her 90s. All had underlying health conditions and had been hospitalized, the state Department of Health said this afternoon.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 258 fatalities on Oahu, 45 on Hawaii island, 21 on Maui, one on Kauai, and three Hawaii residents who died on the mainland. The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency said 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 three weeks.

The U.S. coronavirus-related death toll was more than 408,000 today.

Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 66 on Oahu, 30 on Maui, 16 on the Big Island, and seven residents diagnosed outside of Hawaii, officials said.

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

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 20,133 on Oahu, 2,108 in Hawaii County, 1,531 on Maui, 176 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai and 25 on Molokai. There are also 660 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 1,953 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 174 today.

By island, Oahu has 1,427 active cases, Maui has 353, the Big Island has 144, Kauai has 22 and Molokai has two, according to the state’s latest tally. Lanai has no active COVID cases.

Health officials counted 4,503 new COVID-19 test results in today’s tally, for a 2.5% statewide positivity rate. The state’s 7-day average positivity rate is also 2.5%, according to the Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,642 have required hospitalizations, with 22 new hospitalizations — 19 on Oahu and three on Maui — 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 1,638 hospitalizations within the state, 1,437 have been on Oahu, 95 on Maui, 93 on the Big Island, 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 103 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of Wednesday morning, with 21 in intensive care units and 15 on ventilators.

Health officials said that as of Sunday, 70,095 vaccines have been administered of the 154,150 received by the state. The vaccinations by county are Honolulu, 39,886; Maui, 10,195; Hawaii, 7,011; and Kauai, 5,328. The total also included 7,675 administered under the federal pharmacy program. State officials release the updated the vaccination numbers each Wednesday.

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 79 and the seven-day average positivity rate is 2.9%, 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.