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Hawaii records 4 new coronavirus-related deaths, 3,167 additional infections

Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported four new coronavirus-related deaths and 3,167 new confirmed and probable infections statewide, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 1,146 fatalities and 202,273 cases.

No further information was immediately available regarding the latest deaths.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 845 fatalities on Oahu, 161 on Hawaii island, 106 on Maui, 21 on Kauai, two on Molokai, and 11 Hawaii residents who died outside the state.

Hawaii Department of Health investigators find out the vaccination status of each positive case after the fact, which is why those statistics are not included side by side in the daily case counts, officials have previously said.

The U.S. coronavirus-related death toll today is over 866,000 and the nationwide infection tally is more than 70.5 million.

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Today’s new confirmed and probable infection count includes 2,078 new cases on Oahu, 371 on Hawaii island, 493 on Maui, 168 on Kauai, 10 on Molokai, 11 on Lanai, and 36 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state.

State health officials have been including probable infections in its total case counts. Probable infections include people who never received a confirmatory test but are believed to have had the virus because of their known exposure and symptoms or because of a positive antigen test.

The daily infection tally is usually from cases reported to the state two days earlier.

The total number of confirmed and probable coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 142,766 on Oahu, 21,418 on Hawaii island, 23,691 on Maui, 8,434 on Kauai, 816 on Molokai, and 457 on Lanai. There are also 4,691 Hawaii residents who were diagnosed outside of the state.

Health officials also said today that, of the state’s total infection count, 56,625 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 state’s total number of active cases decreased today by 1,503.

By island, Oahu has 40,030 active cases, the Big Island has 5,492, Maui has 7,505, Kauai has 3,109, Molokai has 287, and Lanai has 202.

Hawaii health officials said the state’s electronic data collection system for cases has become so overwhelmed by the number of test results that it stopped processing negative test results beginning Jan. 16. The move should provide a more accurate daily count of positive cases, officials said, but the change means that the state will not be able to calculate the case positivity rate.

The latest Hawaii COVID-19 vaccine summary says 2,672,297 vaccine doses have been administered through state and federal distribution programs as of Friday, up 6,275 from a day earlier.

Health officials say that 81% of the state’s population is now fully vaccinated, 75% have received at least one dose, and 31% have received a third dose.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 5,519 have required hospitalizations, with 11 new hospitalizations reported today.

Thirty-one hospitalizations in the overall statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 5,488 hospitalizations within the state, 4,191 have been on Oahu, 671 on Maui, 502 on the Big Island, 108 on Kauai, 11 on Molokai, and five on Lanai.

According to the latest information from the department’s Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard, a total of 394 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of Friday, with 45 in intensive care units and 32 on ventilators.

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