1 new coronavirus-related death and 87 new COVID-19 cases reported statewide

Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported one new coronavirus-related death and 87 new infections, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 444 fatalities and 27,838 cases.

No further information was immediately available regarding the latest death, which Blagiardi said in a tweet today was reported on Oahu.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 353 fatalities on Oahu, 53 on Hawaii island, 34 on Maui, one on Kauai, and three Hawaii residents who died outside the state.

The U.S. coronavirus-related death toll today was more than 524,000 and the nationwide infection tally is more than 28.9 million.

Today’s new statewide infection cases include 33 on Oahu, 42 on Maui, eight on Hawaii island, and four residents diagnosed outside of Hawaii, according to state health officials in an email to the Star-Advertiser. As a result of updated information, state health officials said two Oahu cases were removed from the counts. Approximately half of the Maui cases are part of a cluster of cases at Maui Community Correctional Center, according to health officials.

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

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 22,086 on Oahu, 2,264 in Hawaii County, 2,315 on Maui, 184 on Kauai, 108 on Lanai and 27 on Molokai. There are also 854 Hawaii residents who were diagnosed outside of the state.

Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 674 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 increased by 35 today.

By island, Oahu has 346 active cases, Maui has 287, the Big Island has 37, and Kauai has four. Molokai and Lanai have no active cases.

Health officials counted 5,284 new COVID-19 test results in today’s tally, for a 1.65% statewide positivity rate. The state’s 7-day average positivity rate is 1%, according to the Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,898 have required hospitalizations, with five new hospitalizations reported today by state health officials.

Seven hospitalizations in the statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 1,891 hospitalizations within the state, 1,635 have been on Oahu, 141 on Maui, 101 on the Big Island, eight 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 27 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of Friday morning, with five in intensive care units and three on ventilators.

The state’s Hawaii COVID-19 vaccine summary said on Friday that 391,116 vaccines have been administered of the 496,050 received by the state. About 16.1% of the general population in Hawaii has received at least one dose of the vaccine, while about 64% of those ages 75 and over have received one dose.

Of the administered vaccines, 367,622 were given to the general public and 23,494 were distributed through the federal pharmacy program, officials said.

Oahu moved into the less-restrictive Tier 3 of the city’s four-tier economic recovery plan Thursday after being in Tier 2 since Oct. 22. Tier 3 permits social and outdoor recreational gatherings of up to 10 people, and restaurants to seat 10 people at a table, up from five now. Tier 3 also allows funeral services with up to 25 attendees, and group fitness classes indoors with up to 10 participants. Gym capacity can increase to 50%. Restaurants and spiritual services can operate at full capacity as long as the establishments maintain 6 feet of distancing.

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 from Tier 3 to the least-restrictive Tier 4, the 7-day average of new cases must be below 20 on two consecutive Wednesdays. Also, the 7-day average positivity rate must be below 1% on those two Wednesdays. The earliest that Oahu could move into Tier 4 would be late March since it needs to stay in each tier for at least four weeks.

Today’s seven-day average case count for Oahu is 26 and the seven-day average positivity rate is 1.0%, according to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi.

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