Hawaii’s COVID-19 cases may be peaking, but not hospitalizations

Hawaii’s COVID-19 infection rate appears to be stabilizing, Hilton Raethel, president and CEO of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, said Monday.

But he cautioned that even if case numbers subside, the state still can expect to see a significant amount of hospitalizations in the islands through February.

The state Department of Health reported 2,660 new confirmed and probable coronavirus infections Monday, bringing the state’s total since the start of the pandemic to 204,933 cases.

Monday was the third straight day of declines in new cases.

“It does look like we may have reached a peak of infections, looking at the past seven-day and 14-day averages,” Raethel said in a phone interview, “but there’s normally a seven- to 10-day delay between the peak of the infection and peak hospitalizations.”

In addition, Raethel urged that vaccinated people get boosted.

On Monday there were 418 COVID-19 patients in hospitals and 51 COVID-19 patients in the ICUs. Fifty- seven percent of all hospitalized COVID-19 patients were vaccinated, and 15% of them were boosted, he said.

“The evidence is very, very clear that getting boosted does provide a high level of protection from hospitalization and death,” Raethel said.

No new virus-related fatalities were reported Monday, so the Hawaii COVID-19 death toll remained at 1,146.

The U.S. coronavirus-related death toll Monday was over 862,000, and the nationwide infection tally was more than 70.2 million.

Also Monday, the DOH announced it has revised its reporting of the number of completed COVID-19 vaccination series and booster doses administered in Hawaii.

The revision, arising from a review of vaccination reporting, resulted in a decrease in the number of completed vaccination doses tallied to date and an increase in the number of booster shots administered.

The department found an increase in boosters because some of the booster shots administered to people who had previously received a single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been erroneously reported as second doses.

Adding these now correctly recorded booster doses, the current percentage of the population that has received a booster increased to 33.1% Monday from 31.4% Friday, with the most significant increase found among older age groups, DOH said.

The revised data showed the percentage of those ages 65 to 74 who have received booster doses had increased to 69% Monday from 65.4% Friday, while the percentage of those age 75 and older increased to 70.9% Monday from 69.4% Friday.

Conversely, the revised data showed a decrease in the percentage of the overall population that has completed its primary, one- or two-dose vaccine series to 74.4% Monday from 75.5% Friday.

The largest decrease was found to be among people age 50 to 64, of whom 88.2% were found to have completed their primary vaccination series, a decrease from 90.2% Friday.

The latest Hawaii COVID- 19 vaccine summary says 2,684,480 vaccine doses have been administered through state and federal programs as of Monday, up 12,183 from Friday.

Health officials say 74.4% of the state’s population is now fully vaccinated, while 81.6% has received at least one dose, and 33.1% has received a third dose.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 5,525 have required hospitalization, with six new hospitalizations reported Monday.

Melinda Ashton, a pediatrician and spokeswoman for Hawaii Pacific Health, also said it looked as if things might be stabilizing.

“Hospitals right now are busy, as they have been for several weeks across the state, but not busier this week or today than we were last week,” Ashton said Monday on the Honolulu Star- Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” livestream program.

“The good news,” she said, “is patients with COVID are not taking up a lot of ICU capacity, (and there are) not a lot on ventilators, holding true with what we know about the omicron variant” causing less harm to the lungs.

Compared with the mainland, where numbers of children hospitalized with COVID-19 have been soaring, pediatric admissions in Hawaii Pacific Health’s network of hospitals remained rare, principally affecting children whose health was already fragile, Ashton said.

Monday’s new confirmed and probable infection count included 1,554 new cases on Oahu, 303 on Hawaii island, 456 on Maui, 285 on Kauai, 13 on Molokai, 16 on Lanai and 33 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state.

Of the state’s total infection count Monday, 55,723 cases were considered active.

The seven-day average infection count for the state was 4,006, and the average case count for Oahu was 2,678.

Because the state’s electronic data collection system could not handle the high volume of tests, it stopped processing negative test results beginning Jan. 16 and cannot calculate the case positivity rate, DOH announced.

In addition, DOH’s 384 contact tracers “just can’t contact the huge number of infected people to determine their vaccination status,” DOH spokesman Brooks Baehr wrote Monday in an email, so the department is focusing its case investigation on long-term care facilities and schools.