State health officials reported the deaths of an elderly man and woman and 152 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday.
Most of the cases were on Oahu, except for three cases on Maui and one on Hawaii Island.
The 28th and 29th people to die from the virus in Hawaii both had underlying medical conditions and died at a hospital. The woman lived at a Pearl City nursing home. The man caught the virus after a close contact attended a spin class at a gym taught by someone linked to the Hawaiian Airlines cluster, according to the DOH.
“The passing of this man really demonstrates how rapidly and invisibly COVID-19 is spreading through our communities, particularly on Oahu and particularly associated with clusters,” State Epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park said in a press release.
About 8% of people in Hawaii with the virus have needed hospital care.
DOH officials have warned that the virus is now widespread on Oahu. The mayors of Maui, Kauai and Hawaii island are calling on the governor to reinstate a quarantine for interisland travel.
The state is expected to start posting additional data on cases in the next two weeks, amidst calls for greater transparency from the health department about where and how people are catching the virus.
The new data will include hospital bed capacity, occupancy statistics for quarantine facilities, the turnaround time for laboratory tests and information on contact tracing — specifically what percentage of people who become ill and their contacts are interviewed within 24 hours.
The state will also release complaints about restaurants that don’t follow protocols to prevent infections.
The percentage of people testing positive has been rising steadily.
Historically, about 1% to 2% of tests conducted in Hawaii have come back with positive COVID-19 results. On Tuesday that figure was 7.2%.
For more information, check the Hawaii Department of Health COVID-19 site and the Hawaii Data Collaborative COVID-19 Tracking site.
Cases, Deaths And COVID-19 Testing In Hawaii
Hawaii COVID-19 Cases By County
Daily New COVID-19 Cases
Number Of Confirmed COVID–19 Cases In U.S.
COVID-19 Cases Worldwide
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