Hawaii Department of Health officials today reported five new coronavirus-related deaths and 3,955 new confirmed and probable infections statewide, bringing the state’s totals since the start of the pandemic to 1,142 fatalities and 199,106 cases.
The latest deaths were recorded on Oahu. No further information was immediately available regarding the latest fatalities.
The state’s official coronavirus-related death toll includes 842 fatalities on Oahu, 160 on Hawaii island, 106 on Maui, 21 on Kauai, 2 on Molokai, and 11 Hawaii residents who died outside the state.
Hawaii Department of Health investigators find out the vaccination status of each positive case after the fact, which is why those statistics are not included side by side in the daily case counts, officials have previously said.
The U.S. coronavirus-related death toll today is over 864,000 and the nationwide infection tally is more than 70.2 million.
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Today’s new confirmed and probable infection count includes 2,548 new cases on Oahu, 539 on Maui, 484 on Hawaii island, 289 on Kauai, 21 on Molokai, 19 on Lanai, and 55 Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state.
State health officials have been including probable infections in its total case counts. Probable infections include people who never received a confirmatory test but are believed to have had the virus because of their known exposure and symptoms or because of a positive antigen test.
The daily infection tally is usually from cases reported to the state two days earlier.
Health officials also said today that, of the state’s total infection count, 58,128 cases were considered to be active. Officials say they consider infections reported in the past 14 days to be a “proxy number for active cases.” The state’s total number of active cases decreased today by 393.
Hawaii health officials said the state’s electronic data collection system for cases has become so overwhelmed by the number of test results that it stopped processing negative test results beginning Jan. 16. The move should provide a more accurate daily count of positive cases, officials said, but the change means that the state will not be able to calculate the case positivity rate.
The latest Hawaii COVID-19 vaccine summary says 2,672,297 vaccine doses have been administered through state and federal distribution programs as of Friday, up 6,275 from a day earlier.
Health officials say that 75.5% of the state’s population is now fully vaccinated, 81.4% have received at least one dose, and 31.4% have received a third dose.
Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 5,508 have required hospitalizations, with 14 new hospitalizations reported today.
This breaking news story will be updated as more information becomes available.
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