Hawaii health officials urge simple steps for safer parties

Hawaii’s average daily COVID-19 case count is showing no signs of an uptick the week before Christmas.

The Hawaii Department of Health on Wednesday reported the seven-day average of new cases dropped to 158 compared with 180 reported on Dec. 14. The average is based on data from Dec. 10 to 16, approximately a week before Christmas.

The state’s average positivity rate also declined to 5.9% compared with 6.4% the previous week.

DOH is urging Hawaii residents to celebrate the holidays by taking simple safety precautions to help reduce the spread of COVID and other respiratory illnesses.

In addition to urging people to get their updated bivalent boosters, the department encourages people to stay home if sick and to wear masks indoors, when traveling, and with vulnerable people. If meeting with kupuna and others at high risk of severe illness, the department recommends taking an at-home test first.

Also, the department encourages people to gather outdoors and limit gathering sizes. If gathering indoors, open windows and use fans to improve ventilation.

Last but not least, DOH continues to encourage washing or sanitizing hands frequently.

“The past few years COVID-19 illness increased during the holidays after people got together to celebrate,” said state Health Director Dr. Elizabeth “Libby” Char in a news release. “We encourage celebrations, but urge people to take steps to protect one another, especially people at high-risk including kupuna, those with underlying health conditions, and people with compromised immune systems.”

To date, 78.3% of Hawaii’s population has completed the primary series of COVID- 19 vaccinations, according to the Health Department. A total of 248,296 residents, or 22.3% of the state’s eligible population, have received the new bivalent booster.

Residents ages 5 years and older are eligible for the updated bivalent boosters, free at pharmacies, health centers, and hospitals, if it has been at least two months since the final dose of the primary series or the previous booster.

Recently, the bivalent boosters also became available for keiki as young as 6 months old.

Moderna’s bivalent booster is available to children ages 6 months to 5 years old if it has been two months since completing a primary series with the monovalent Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

Pfizer’s bivalent booster is available to children 6 months to 4 years old who either have not yet begun their three-dose primary series of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, or who have not yet received their third dose.

Those who already have completed their three-dose series of the original, mono­valent Pfizer vaccine, however, are not eligible for a bivalent booster dose at this time, the Food and Drug Administration said.

Those recently infected with COVID-19 may consider delaying the bivalent booster by three months from when symptoms started or a positive test.

Omicron subvariant BA.5 is no longer the dominant variant in Hawaii, having been pushed out by the more immune-evasive BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 lineages.

DOH’s latest variant report, released Tuesday, found that BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 together now make up about 54%, while BA.5 makes up only 23%, of of variants circulating in Hawaii, based on genome sequencing for the two-week period ending Dec. 3.

Another immune-evasive variant, XBB and its lineages, make up 6% of variants circulating in the state.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, expressed concerns over rising reports of severe COVID-19 in China after the ending of its “zero COVID” policy.

WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that since the peak at the end of January, the number of weekly reported COVID deaths worldwide has dropped almost 90%.

“Certainly, we are in a much better place with the COVID-19 pandemic than we were a year ago, when we were in the early stages of the Omicron wave, with rapidly increasing cases and deaths,” he said at a media briefing. “However, there are still too many uncertainties and gaps for us to say the pandemic is over.”

Those gaps include surveillance, testing, sequencing, vaccinations, treatment and understanding how the pandemic began.

DOH on Wednesday also reported 10 more deaths, bringing the state’s COVID death toll to 1,758.