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Hawaii records 10 new coronavirus-related deaths, 1,177 additional infections

Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported 10 new coronavirus-related deaths and 1,177 new confirmed and probable infections statewide, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 1,191 fatalities and 221,533 cases.

Six of the latest deaths were on Oahu and four were on Maui. No further information was immediately available regarding the latest deaths.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 879 fatalities on Oahu, 164 on Hawaii island, 112 on Maui, 22 on Kauai, two on Molokai and 12 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 885,000 and the nationwide infection tally is more than 75 million.

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Today’s new confirmed and probable infection count includes 775 new cases on Oahu, 74 on Hawaii island, 179 on Maui, 68 on Kauai, seven on Molokai, six on Lanai and 68 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 155,054 on Oahu, 23,680 on Hawaii island, 26,336 on Maui, 9,919 on Kauai, 870 on Molokai and 553 on Lanai. There are also 5,121 Hawaii residents who were diagnosed outside of the state.

Health officials also said today that, of the state’s total infection count, 35,053 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 2,746.

By island, Oahu has 23,541 active cases, the Big Island has 4,017, Maui has 4,689, Kauai has 2,479, Molokai has 140 and Lanai has 187.

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 between Jan. 16 and 30. 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.

State health officials said the positivity rate for each county is currently unavailable. As of Jan. 31, state health officials are using an interim method to calculate the statewide positivity rate. The state’s 7-day average infection count is 1,682 and its seven-day average positivity rate is 11.5%, according to the Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard.

The latest Hawaii COVID-19 vaccine summary says 2,724,770 vaccine doses have been administered through state and federal distribution programs as of today, up 2,334 from a day earlier.

Health officials say that 74.9% of the state’s population is now vaccinated, 82.1% have received at least one dose, and 34.9% have received a third dose of the booster.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 5,640 have required hospitalizations, with 22 new hospitalizations reported today.

Thirty-two hospitalizations in the overall statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 5,608 hospitalizations within the state, 4,255 have been on Oahu, 712 on Maui, 515 on the Big Island, 110 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 314 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of today, with 48 in intensive care units and 31 on ventilators. On Tuesday, there were 321 total hospitalized virus patients, including 49 in ICUs and 31 on ventilators.


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


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