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Hawaii sees 45 new coronavirus infections, bringing statewide total to 27,935

CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARADVERTISER.COM
                                Pedestrians wear masks as they walked along Fort Street Mall in downtown on Friday. Health officials continue to urge people to wear masks and practice social distancing to keep Hawaii’s low COVID-19 infection rate from spiking again.

CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARADVERTISER.COM

Pedestrians wear masks as they walked along Fort Street Mall in downtown on Friday. Health officials continue to urge people to wear masks and practice social distancing to keep Hawaii’s low COVID-19 infection rate from spiking again.

Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported 45 new coronavirus infections, bringing the state’s total since the start of the pandemic to 27,935 cases.

State health officials reported no new coronavirus-related fatalities as the statewide death toll remains 445.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 353 fatalities on Oahu, 53 on Hawaii island, 35 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 525,000 and the nationwide infection tally is over 29 million.

Today’s new statewide infection cases include 21 on Oahu, 11 on Maui, 10 on Hawaii island, and three state residents diagnosed outside of Hawaii, according to health officials.

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

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 22,131 on Oahu, 2,338 on Maui, 2,282 in Hawaii County, 186 on Kauai, 108 on Lanai and 27 on Molokai. There are also 863 Hawaii residents who were diagnosed outside of the state. As a result of updated information, one previous case from Oahu was removed from the counts, state officials said today.

Health officials also said today that of the state’s total infection count, 648 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 statedecreased by 10 today.

By island, Oahu has 339 active cases, Maui has 255, the Big Island has 49, and Kauai has five. Molokai and Lanai have no active cases.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,904 have required hospitalizations, with two new hospitalizations —one each on Oahu and Maui — reported today by state health officials.

Eight hospitalizations in the statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 1,896 hospitalizations within the state, 1,637 have been on Oahu, 144 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 24 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of this 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% 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.

RELATED STORY: Health Department says highly transmissible South African COVID-19 variant present in Hawaii

Oahu moved into the less-restrictive Tier 3 of the city’s four-tier economic recovery plan on Feb. 25 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 24 and the seven-day average positivity rate is 0.9%, according to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi.

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