Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported one new coronavirus-related death on Oahu and 98 new infections statewide, bringing the totals since the start of the pandemic to 132 fatalities and 12,116 cases.
No further details were immediately available about the latest death.
The Hawaii Department of Health has yet to officially count about a dozen of the latest deaths at the Yukio Okutsu State Veterans Home in Hilo, which has been the site of a major COVID-19 cluster. Hilo Medical Center has reported that 26 of the Big Island’s 28 coronavirus-related deaths have been residents of the nursing home. But the state has only verified coronavirus as a factor in 15 deaths from that island.
Hawaii government hospital administrators are taking over management of the state-owned veterans care home from private Utah-based operator Avalon Health Care.
The new infection cases in Hawaii today included 91 on Oahu, and seven on Hawaii island.
The state’s official death toll as of today includes 107 on Oahu, 15 on Hawaii island, and nine on Maui, while one was a Kauai resident who died on the mainland.
The U.S. death toll is nearly 205,000 today.
Today’s total coronavirus cases by county since the start of the outbreak are 10,939 on Oahu, 700 in Hawaii County, 388 in Maui County, and 59 in Kauai County. There are also 30 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside of the state.
As of today, 1,829 infections are considered active cases statewide, with a total of 10,155 patients now classified by health officials as “released from isolation,” or 84% of those infected. The category counts those infected people who have met the criteria for being released from isolation. Officials reported 29 new releases today.
On Saturday, health officials significantly decreased it’s count of active infections, saying, “The Department of Health has been focused on redesigning procedures to maximize effectiveness of COVID-19 case investigation and contact tracing including making a variety of changes to data systems allowing them to be more automated, and to improve timeliness of data entry and validation. Isolation release data completeness was the focus of recent efforts, resulting in a substantial increase in the number of COVID-19 cases currently reported as released from isolation, from 5,397 to 10126.”
By county, Honolulu has seen 9,160 patients released from isolation, Hawaii County has had 584 releases, Maui has seen 355 patients released. Kauai has two active infections.
Of all the confirmed Hawaii cases, 816 have required hospitalizations, with 14 new hospitalizations — 11 on Oahu and three on Maui — reported today, health officials said.
Two hospitalizations in the statewide count are Hawaii residents who were diagnosed and treated outside the state. Of the 800 hospitalizations in the state, 707 have been on Oahu, 52 on Maui, 40 on Hawaii island, and one on Kauai.
Lt. Gov. Josh Green said today that there are 148 COVID-19 patients in Hawaii hospitals, which he said is one of the state’s lowest coronavirus hospitalization numbers in the last two months. On Saturday, state officials said, there were 48 COVID-19 patients in intensive care units and 31 on ventilators in Hawaii hospitals.
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Officials counted 1,908 new tests in today’s tally, with today’s 98 positive results representing 5.1% of the total tested, according to Green.
Of the 293,562 coronavirus tests conducted so far by state and clinical laboratories in Hawaii since the start of the outbreak, a total of 4.1% have been positive.
Oahu’s seven-day average case count must stay below 100 and its positivity rate must be below 5% for 14 consecutive days to move to the next level of economic opening. As of today, Honolulu has four straight days under both benchmarks.
