The Hawaii Department of Health announced Wednesday that it’s switching to a weekly posting of coronavirus cases and other data — discontinuing daily postings — as it transitions to the next phase of the pandemic.

State Health Director Dr. Elizabeth Char said the shift allows for a more effective and sustainable response to the pandemic.

“Our decisions have always been based on trends, not single-day counts,” Char said in a news release. “There is greater focus now on weekly hospital admissions, weekly hospital occupancy, and weekly case counts when calculating the current community levels of COVID-19. Our processes are evolving as the pandemic evolves.”

State Epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Kemble pointed out that because more people are taking COVID-19 tests at home, which are not counted in DOH’s data, “our case counts are not as accurate a reflection of COVID-19 in the community as they once were.”

Kemble added, “We are still monitoring case counts, but hospital metrics now play a larger role in our decisions. Vaccination progress is still an important metric. Weekly intervals are better than day-to-day incremental changes when determining where progress is being made or where additional progress is needed.”

DOH shared this update during a joint informational briefing for the state Senate Health Committee and House Committee on Pandemic and Disaster Preparedness held Wednesday afternoon.

The move comes a day after Gov. David Ige announced a sunset date of March 25 for Hawaii’s indoor mask mandate as well as the state’s Safe Travels program, which screens domestic passengers and requires proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 tests to bypass a five-day quarantine.

On Wednesday, the Health Department reported 154 more infections statewide, bringing Hawaii’s total since the start of the pandemic to 237,672 cases. No new deaths were reported, and the state’s COVID-19 death toll remained at 1,354.

The seven-day average of new cases statewide was at 142, and the average positivity rate at 2.3%. The next set of data will be published Wednesday.

Due to updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kemble said that DOH also has shifted from contact tracing every case to focusing on higher-risk, congregate settings or unusual clusters.

Testing at public schools will remain critical through the end of the school year, she said, in light of new guidance that allows mask- wearing outdoors to be optional while continuing to require masks indoors. Additionally, quarantine will no longer be required after exposure in a school setting.

To date, 196 schools are actively testing for COVID- 19, more than 101,000 tests have been conducted at schools since Aug. 1, 2021, and more than 70,500 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered at school-based events.

Char said DOH will scale back COVID-19 testing sites as demand declines and encourage residents to return to doctors’ offices, clinics and hospitals or to get free home tests.

The Health Department’s Laboratories Division continues to monitor for variants through whole genome sequencing of samples collected statewide and is setting up a wastewater surveillance system.

Char said DOH hopes it will be fully operational by this summer, but has not determined how data will be made available to the public.

Wastewater monitoring — already up and running in hundreds of U.S. municipalities — serves as an early detection tool for when levels of coronavirus infections are going up or down in a community.

“In summary, we’re in a good place right now,” Char said. “We’re moving in the right direction though we have a ways to go to get to our pre-delta baseline.”

She said the state would continue to monitor case counts along with hospitalizations, and what’s happening elsewhere in the world, noting that case counts are now spiking in South Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Three city-sponsored COVID testing sites are still operational, along with pop-ups at venues like Waikiki Shell.

The two contracts for the city’s isolation-quarantine facilities at Harbor Arms in Aiea and West Loch in Ewa Beach are slated to expire March 31, after which both will be closed. As of Wednesday, only eight patients remained at Harbor Arms.

During the informational briefing held by state lawmakers, county mayors shared that their pandemic-related restrictions have been dropped, and their individual county case counts and hospitalizations are declining.