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Hawaii records 4 new coronavirus-related deaths, 532 additional infections

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / 2021
                                A medical lab technician runs tests in a mobile COVID-19 testing laboratory at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport last year.

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / 2021

A medical lab technician runs tests in a mobile COVID-19 testing laboratory at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport last year.

Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported four new coronavirus-related deaths and 532 new confirmed and probable infections statewide, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 1,262 fatalities and 231,510 cases.

No further information was immediately available regarding the latest deaths.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 929 fatalities on Oahu, 174 on Hawaii island, 120 on Maui, 24 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 919,000 and the nationwide infection tally is more than 77.7 million.

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Today’s new confirmed and probable infection count includes 287 new cases on Oahu, 64 on Hawaii island, 82 on Maui, 62 on Kauai, three on Molokai, six on Lanai and 28 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 161,015 on Oahu, 25,098 on Hawaii island, 27,380 on Maui, 11,011 on Kauai, 919 on Molokai and 604 on Lanai. There are also 5,483 Hawaii residents who were diagnosed outside of the state.

Health officials also said today that, of the state’s total infection count, 12,838 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 by 1,775 today.

By island, Oahu has 8,290 active cases, the Big Island has 1,730, Maui has 1,457, Kauai has 1,230, Molokai has 63, and Lanai has 68.

The seven-day average for Oahu is 652 cases with a 7.0% positivity rate, according to the Hawaii COVID-19 Data dashboard.

The latest Hawaii COVID-19 vaccine summary says 2,754,202 vaccine doses have been administered through state and federal distribution programs as of Friday, up 1,803 from a day earlier.

Health officials say that 75% of the state’s population is now fully vaccinated, 82.5% have received at least one dose, and 36% have received a third dose of the booster.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 5,888 have required hospitalizations, with 18 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 5,856 hospitalizations within the state, 4,413 have been on Oahu, 753 on Maui, 544 on the Big Island, 130 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 184 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of Friday, with 26 in intensive care units and 15 on ventilators.

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