Hawaii health officials today reported 78 new coronavirus infections statewide, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 18,044 cases.

No new deaths were reported today as the state’s coronavirus-related death toll remains at 244.

The official state Department of Health coronavirus-related death toll includes 190 fatalities on Oahu, 34 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 Saturday that the Big Island’s COVID-19 death toll remains at 49, however, state health officials have yet to verify coronavirus as a factor in 15 of those deaths.

The U.S. coronavirus death toll was more than 272,000 today.

Today’s new infection cases in Hawaii include 63 on Oahu, four on Maui, one each on the Big Island and Kauai, and nine Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state, according to the Health Department. As a result of updated information, one Oahu infection and one out-of-state resident case were dropped from the counts.

The statistics released today reflect the new cases reported to the department through 11:59 p.m. Monday.

Health officials counted 4,281 COVID-19 new test results, for a 1.8% statewide positivity rate.

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 15,424 on Oahu, 1,606 in Hawaii County, 551 on Maui, 114 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai, and 18 on Molokai. There are also 225 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

Hawaii health officials said that of the state’s total infection count, 1,250 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 Hawaii rose by seven today.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,304 have required hospitalizations, with 13 new hospitalizations — 11 on Oahu and two on Hawaii island — reported today by state health officials.

Two hospitalizations in the statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 1,302 hospitalizations within the state, 1,149 have been on Oahu, 78 on the Big Island, 63 on Maui, six 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 54 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of noon Tuesday, with 19 in intensive care units and 15 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, or percentage of tests coming back positive, must be below 2.5% on those two Wednesdays.

Today’s seven-day average case count for Oahu is 60 and the positivity rate was 2.1%, according to Caldwell.

This breaking news story will be updated as more information becomes available.