Hawaii Health officials report 1,327 new COVID-19 infections, 2 coronavirus-related deaths

The Hawaii Department of Health today reported 1,327 new COVID-19 infections over the past week, bringing the total number of cases since the start of the pandemic to 361,817.

DOH also reported two more deaths, bringing the state’s coronavirus-related death toll since the start of the pandemic to 1,704. Both were kupuna ages 80 and older who lived on Oahu and had been hospitalized.

The state’s seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases increased to 177 compared with 151 reported on Oct. 19.

The seven-day average is based on an earlier set of seven days (Oct. 15 to 21) than the week-over-week infection count (Oct. 18 to 24) because cases from the most recent three days may not have been reported yet.

Actual numbers are also estimated to be higher since these figures do not include unreported home test kit results.

The number of cases per 100,000 in the state bumped up to 12.5 compared with 10.6 the previous week.

The state’s average positivity rate also increased to 6.2% compared with 5.8% reported the previous week.

By island, there were 877 cases reported on Oahu, 197 on Hawaii island, 153 on Maui, 82 on Kauai, and four on Molokai. Another 14 infections were reported for out-of-state Hawaii residents.

Health officials are keeping a close eye on trends as more immune-evasive variants of omicron grow in proportion across the U.S.

These variants have mutations that not only get around immunity from vaccination or previous infection, but evade monoclonal antibody treatments.

Variants BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, which are both offshoots of BA.5, as well as XBB.1, have been detected via genome sequencing of test samples in Hawaii.