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STAR-ADVERTISER / JAN. 5
A person grabs a COVID-19 testing swab at Fort Ruger Park, also known as Triangle Park, in Kahala.
Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported 18 new coronavirus-related deaths and 1,278 new confirmed and probable infections statewide, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 1,222 fatalities and 225,535 cases.
Twelve of the latest deaths were recorded on Oahu, with Hawaii island and Maui reporting three fatalities each. No further information was immediately available regarding the latest deaths.
The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 902 fatalities on Oahu, 167 on Hawaii island, 116 on Maui, 22 on Kauai, three 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 900,000 and the nationwide infection tally is more than 76.3 million.
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Today’s new confirmed and probable infection count includes 750 new cases on Oahu, 192 on Hawaii island, 129 on Maui, 135 on Kauai, five on Molokai, five on Lanai, and 62 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 157,456 on Oahu, 24,263 on Hawaii island, 26,759 on Maui, 10,341 on Kauai, 886 on Molokai, and 570 on Lanai. There are also 5,260 Hawaii residents who were diagnosed outside of the state.
Health officials also said today that, of the state’s total infection count, 25,114 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 2,456.
By island, Oahu has 16,507 active cases, the Big Island has 3,084, Maui has 3,248, Kauai has 2,073, Molokai has 79, and Lanai has 123.
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 1,363 and it’s seven-day average positivity rate is 8.9%, according to the Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard.
The latest Hawaii COVID-19 vaccine summary says 2,734,242 vaccine doses have been administered through state and federal distribution programs as of Friday, up 3,886 from a day earlier.
Health officials say that 75% of the state’s population is now vaccinated, 82.2% have received at least one dose, and 35.3% have received a third dose.
Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 5,698 have required hospitalizations, with 25 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 5,666 hospitalizations within the state, 4,284 have been on Oahu, 724 on Maui, 529 on the Big Island, 113 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 283 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of Friday, with 34 in intensive care units and 21 on ventilators.
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