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Hawaii records 3 new coronavirus-related deaths on Oahu and 107 new infections statewide

JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
                                Volunteer Robert Sanders lines up the last few boxes of eggs to give to waiting vehicles during a food distribution event on Tuesday in Ewa Beach. The Salvation Army’s Kroc Center Hawaii, with the support of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, held the drive-thru food box distribution, with about 450 families receiving food for meals, fresh produce and more in collaboration with Y. Hata & Co.
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JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM

Volunteer Robert Sanders lines up the last few boxes of eggs to give to waiting vehicles during a food distribution event on Tuesday in Ewa Beach. The Salvation Army’s Kroc Center Hawaii, with the support of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, held the drive-thru food box distribution, with about 450 families receiving food for meals, fresh produce and more in collaboration with Y. Hata & Co.

Hawaii health officials today reported three new coronavirus-related deaths and 107 new infections statewide, bringing the totals since the start of the pandemic to 285 deaths and 20,522 cases.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell said the latest deaths were on Oahu. State officials said all three — a woman in her 50s, a man in his 80s, and a woman in her 70s — had underlying conditions and had been hospitalized. No further information was released.

The official state Department of Health coronavirus-related death toll includes 221 fatalities on Oahu, 44 on Hawaii island, 17 on Maui, one on Kauai, and two Hawaii residents who died on the mainland. The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency said Tuesday that the Big Island’s COVID-19 death toll remains at 50, but health officials have yet to verify coronavirus as a factor in six of those Hawaii island deaths.

The U.S. coronavirus death toll topped 325,000 today.

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Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 69 on Oahu, 15 on Maui, 13 on the Big Island, and 10 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state, officials said. As a result of updated information, one case each from Maui and Oahu were removed from the counts.

The statistics released today reflect the new infection cases reported to the department on Monday.

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 17,277 on Oahu, 1,835 in Hawaii County, 806 on Maui, 138 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai and 22 on Molokai. There are also 338 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state. As a result of updated information, one case from Maui was recategorized to out-of-state, officials said.

Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,733 cases are considered to be active. Health officials say they consider infections reported in the past 14 days to be a “proxy number for active cases.” The number of active cases in the state rose by 33 today.

By island, Oahu has 1,360 active cases, the Big Island has 175, Maui has 172, and Kauai has 16, according to the latest tally. Molokai and Lanai no longer have active COVID cases.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,426 have required hospitalizations, with 11 hospitalizations reported today by state health officials.

Three hospitalizations in the statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 1,423 hospitalizations within the state, 1,253 have been on Oahu, 85 on the Big Island, 72 on Maui, seven on Kauai, five on Lanai, and one on Molokai.

According to the latest information from the department’s Hawaii COVID-19 data dashboard, a total of 67 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of Wednesday, with 14 in intensive care units and 11 on ventilators.

Oahu moved to the less-restrictive Tier 2 of Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s four-tier economic recovery plan on Oct. 22. The mayor’s office says that to gauge whether Honolulu will move to a different tier, the city takes a “weekly assessment” of two key COVID-19 numbers each Wednesday. To move to Tier 3 from Tier 2, the 7-day average of new cases must be below 50 on two consecutive Wednesdays. Also, the 7-day average positivity rate must be below 2.5% on those two Wednesdays.

Today’s seven-day average case count for Oahu is 105 and the positivity rate is 3.5%, according to Caldwell.

On Monday, Caldwell said new infections among prisoners at Halawa Correctional Facility will no longer be counted in his metrics for the recovery plan. A recent cluster at the prison had been boosting Honolulu’s infection count and threatening to send Oahu back to Tier 1, the most-restrictive of the mayor’s four-tier system.

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