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Hawaii reports 2 coronavirus-related deaths and 200 new infections

JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
                                Manoa Gardens resident Tsugie Terao, left, receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from CVS pharmacist Anh Mitsuda at Manoa Gardens retirement community on Saturday in Honolulu. Manoa Gardens received the first round of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines through CVS, under a contract with the federal government. About 110 residents were vaccinated on Saturday.

JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM

Manoa Gardens resident Tsugie Terao, left, receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from CVS pharmacist Anh Mitsuda at Manoa Gardens retirement community on Saturday in Honolulu. Manoa Gardens received the first round of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines through CVS, under a contract with the federal government. About 110 residents were vaccinated on Saturday.

Hawaii State Department of Health officials today reported two new coronavirus-related deaths and 200 infections, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 309 fatalities and 23,341 cases.

The fatalities included a person on Oahu and one Hawaii resident diagnosed out of state. No further details on the deaths were immediately available.

The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 243 fatalities on Oahu, 45 on Hawaii island, 18 on Maui, one on Kauai, and three Hawaii residents who died on the mainland. The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency said today that the Big Island’s COVID-19 death toll remained at 51, but state officials have not verified coronavirus as a factor in six of those fatalities.

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Today’s new statewide infection cases reported by the Health Department include 128 on Oahu, 30 on Maui, 12 on the Big Island, nine on Kauai, and 21 state residents diagnosed outside of Hawaii, officials said. As a result of updated information, one case from Oahu and one from out of state were removed from the counts.

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

The total number of coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 19,198 on Oahu, 2,006 in Hawaii County, 1,277 on Maui, 166 on Kauai, 106 on Lanai and 25 on Molokai. There are also 563 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.

Hawaii health officials said today that of the state’s total infection count, 2,152 cases were 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 increased by 84 today.

By island, Oahu has 1,598 active cases, Maui has 384, the Big Island has 144, and Kauai has 23, and Molokai has three, according to the state’s latest tally. Lanai has no active COVID cases.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 1,558 have required hospitalizations, with 15 new hospitalizations reported today by state health officials.

Four hospitalizations in the statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 1,554 hospitalizations within the state, 1,370 have been on Oahu, 92 on the Big Island, 79 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 129 patients with the virus were in Hawaii hospitals as of 8:30 a.m. Friday, with 24 in intensive care units and 20 on ventilators.

State health officials announced Thursday that they have started posting the total number of vaccinations administered statewide. As of Saturday, the department said 25,470 individuals have been vaccinated — including 17,991 in Honolulu County, 3,013 in Maui County, 2,526 in Hawaii County, and 1,940 in Kauai County. The vaccination numbers are updated weekly.

Oahu moved to the less-restrictive Tier 2 of Honolulu’s four-tier economic recovery plan on Oct. 22. 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 129 and the seven-day average positivity rate is 4.1%, according to Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi, who said Thursday that Oahu will remain at Tier 2.

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