HAWAII VIRUS TRACKER — Dec. 21: 134 New COVID-19 Cases

Hawaii received its first shipment of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.

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Health officials reported 134 on Monday.

The new cases included 104 on Oahu, 13 on the Big Island, 14 on Maui, one on Kauai and two Hawaii residents diagnosed out of state.

Hawaii received its first shipment of 12,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine Monday, according to Brooks Baehr, a spokesman for the health department. Maui, Hawaii and Kauai counties will receive 2,000 doses each, and Oahu will receive 6,000.

Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell said that the new cases recorded Monday on Oahu included 55 inmates and eight staff at the Halawa Correctional Facility, in addition to the 93 cases reported at the facility on Sunday.

Caldwell said the cases at Halawa will not affect any decision to return Oahu to the restrictive Tier 1 in its . Oahu’s weekly case rate, excluding inmates, would be 82.6 new cases and 2.9% of tests returning positive, compared to a weekly case rate of 105 cases and 3.6% test positivity rate counting inmates.

“Inmates are part of our population and they’re equally important,” he said at , “but for the purposes of moving back to tier one, they’ll be subtracted unless there’s some major negative impact on our health care resources.”

The Department of Health’s acting epidemiologist, Dr. Sarah Kemble, told Civil Beat last week that the department believes inmate cases should still be counted on Oahu because they’re still part of the “community picture” and people who work at the facility have community ties.  Kemble said the state is conducting more rapid COVID-19 testing at jails and prisons to keep tabs on future cases.

Reporting Lag

Civil Beat’s virus tracker is updated when the state releases its daily numbers. The state posts new data daily at noon. The daily reports reflect laboratory results collected up until 11:59 p.m. two days prior, leaving a 36-hour lag between when results are submitted to the Department of Health and when the state reports them publicly.

The official is 282. Civil Beat calculates at least 287 people have died from the disease in Hawaii, including five deaths on Hawaii island that are still pending medical verification by the state. has recorded 49 deaths on the Big Island.

Oahu remains in if the island’s upward trend in cases continues. In the last seven days, the island has seen an average of 105 new cases reported daily. Approximately 3.6% of tests conducted on the island were positive last week.

According to Janice Okubo, spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Health, the COVID-19 case reports are based on test results from laboratories statewide and include both residents and tourists.

Hawaii residents who test positive out of state also are included, as well as cases confirmed among military service members and their families, although military cases are not specifically identified.

There were 1,688 cases recorded during the past two weeks — a metric that the health department uses as a proxy to estimate how many people have active infections.

For more information, check or , and . The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency also provides this

Cases, Deaths And COVID-19 Testing In Hawaii

20,351
COVID-19 Cases
287
Deaths
773,450
Tests performed
Source: ,

Honolulu’s 7-Day Averages


Current Tier*
105
Daily Case Count
3.6%
Test Positivity
Source: * The current case numbers and test positivity rate may not correlate with the metrics set for a specific tier as the county must spend at least four consecutive weeks in a tier and meet the metrics for the next tier before advancing, according to the reopening plan. More information of the City and County of Honolulu’s reopening strategy as well as details of the restrictions of , , and can be found at

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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