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Hawaii sees 4 new coronavirus-related deaths on Oahu and 134 infections statewide with total cases topping 25K

JAMM AQUINO / JAN. 22
                                An overview of hotels along Kalakaua Avenue on Friday in Waikiki. Hawaii hotels finished December with the lowest occupancy of any state in the nation due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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JAMM AQUINO / JAN. 22

An overview of hotels along Kalakaua Avenue on Friday in Waikiki. Hawaii hotels finished December with the lowest occupancy of any state in the nation due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Hawaii health officials today reported four new coronavirus-related deaths and 134 new infections, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 336 fatalities and 25,003 cases.

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

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 266 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 416,000 today.

Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 105 on Oahu, 21 on Maui, two on the Big Island, and six residents diagnosed outside of Hawaii, officials said. As a result of updated information, one Oahu case was removed from the counts.

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

Hawaii health officials said Friday they are currently investigating five COVID-19 clusters at correctional facilities, educational settings, unidentified restaurants and food suppliers on Oahu; seven clusters involving construction and industrial settings along with apartment complexes in Maui County; and one travel-related cluster in Hawaii County. No clusters were under investigation for Kauai County.

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 20,334 on Oahu, 2,115 in Hawaii County, 1,571 on Maui, 177 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai and 25 on Molokai. There are also 675 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 1,736 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 102 today.

By island, Oahu has 1,272 active cases, Maui has 324, the Big Island has 121, Kauai has 19, according to the state’s latest tally. Lanai and Molokai have no active COVID cases.

Health officials counted 4,974 new COVID-19 test results in today’s tally, for a 2.69% 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, 1,657 have required hospitalizations, with 10 new hospitalizations 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 1,653 hospitalizations within the state, 1,449 have been on Oahu, 97 on Maui, 94 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 96 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of Friday morning, with 21 in intensive care units and 18 on ventilators.

Health officials said 70,095 vaccines have been administered of the 154,150 received by the state as of Jan. 18. 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 vaccination numbers each Wednesday.

>> RELATED: Hawaii’s vaccine rollout climbs past 94,000

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 76 and the seven-day average positivity rate is 3.0%, 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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