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Hawaii Department of Health officials reported 833 new confirmed and probable coronavirus infections today, bringing the state’s total since the start of the pandemic to 227,284 cases.
No new virus-related fatalities were reported today so the statewide COVID-19 death toll remains 1,226.
The U.S. coronavirus-related death toll today is over 898,000 and the nationwide infection tally is more than 76.2 million.
Today’s new confirmed and probable infection count includes 488 new cases on Oahu, 125 on Hawaii island, 92 on Maui, 94 on Kauai, four on Molokai, seven on Lanai and 23 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.
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 between Jan. 16 and 30. 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.
State health officials said the positivity rate for each county is currently unavailable. As of Jan. 31, state health officials are using an interim method to calculate the statewide positivity rate.
This breaking news story will be updated as more information becomes available.
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