Hawaii reports 5 new coronavirus-related deaths and 56 additional infections

UPDATE: 4:20 p.m.

State health officials said all five of the latest coronavirus-related deaths announced earlier today had been hospitalized and had underlying conditions.

The two Oahu deaths were a woman in her 50s and a man in his 80s.

The three Maui fatalities were all men, one in his 60s, another in his 70s, and the third in his 80s.

No further details were released by the state Department of Health. The statewide coronavirus-related death toll is 423.

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Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported five new coronavirus-related deaths and 56 infections, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 423 fatalities and 26,584 cases.

Three of the deaths were on Maui and two on Oahu. No further information was immediately available on the latest fatalities.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 337 fatalities on Oahu, 53 on Hawaii island, 29 on Maui, one on Kauai, and three Hawaii residents who died outside the state.

The U.S. coronavirus-related death toll is nearly 470,000 today and total infections since the start of the pandemic are more than 27 million. Both figures are the highest of any nation in the world.

Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 42 on Oahu, nine on Maui, two on the Big Island, and three residents diagnosed outside of Hawaii, officials said.

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

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 21,423 on Oahu, 2,203 in Hawaii County, 1,882 on Maui, 179 on Kauai, 109 on Lanai and 25 on Molokai. There are also 763 Hawaii residents who were diagnosed outside of the state. As a result of updated information, two cases on Oahu and one out-of-state case were removed from the counts, officials said today.

Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 1,085 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 42 today.

By island, Oahu has 784 active cases, Maui has 225, the Big Island has 70, Kauai and Lanai have three each, according to the state’s latest tally. Molokai has no active COVID cases.

Health officials counted 4,322 new COVID-19 test results in today’s tally, for a 1.2% statewide positivity rate. The state’s 7-day average positivity rate is 1.5%, according to the Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,766 have required hospitalizations, with 14 new hospitalizations 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 1,762 hospitalizations within the state, 1,545 have been on Oahu, 105 on Maui, 99 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 52 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of this morning, with 14 in intensive care units and 12 on ventilators.

Health officials said that as of Sunday, 218,997 vaccines have been administered of the 267,800 received by the state. The number of administered vaccines were up 39% from a week earlier, while the number of vaccines received rose 18%. Of the administered vaccines, 201,553 were given to the general public and 17,444 were distributed through the federal pharmacy program, officials said today.

As of Sunday, nearly 11% of the general population of Hawaii and 47% of residents age 75 and older have received at least one dose, they said.

State officials release the verified updated vaccination numbers each Wednesday.

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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 52 and the seven-day average positivity rate is 2%, according to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi.