Big Island has 26 active cases (7 new), state adds 261

After Hawaii’s case count increase of only 134 new confirmed new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, there was hope it was the start of a downward trend.  It was not.  Today, Hawaii State Department of Health announced there are 261 new cases statewide, with 234 on Oahu,  20 in Maui County, and 7 on the Big Island. Kaua’i has had no new cases for four days.

The state’s total is 5,609, with around 3,590 active cases.  Most of the active cases are on O’ahu.   In an update today,  Dr. Bruce Anderson said the case count is “reasonably good news,” in that he believes we are seeing a plateauing of positive cases.  Of the 261 new cases,  56 were associated with O’ahu Community Correctional Center, a known cluster of cases, and 37 in today’s count should have been included in yesterday’s count.  Our island laboratories have had to start sending tests to the mainland for processing, due to a shortage of supplies to process the tests here in the state.  Dr. Anderson said we are seeing fewer cases than projected.  Additionally, he said none of our hospitals is currently facing a crisis as hospital admissions are stable.

Dr. Anderson said the number of contact tracers on O’ahu has grown since yesterday’s 77 to 96 today.   He says most people who have tested positive have been notified and asked about their contacts within 24 hours, although previously he had acknowledged that it might have taken days.  He said there are 30 total additional staff doing contact tracing for Maui, Hawaii Island, and Kaua’i.  (Note, this indicates that the number of  77 tracers on Hawaii Island which County Civil Defense Administrator Talmadge Magno reported he’d been told were with State DOH on the Big Island this morning is not the actual number.)   Dr. Anderson said the state applied for and will receive $50 million through the Federal CARES Act over the next 30 months.  He said they’ve spent part of it on training 400 contact tracers at University of Hawaii.  He said most of the rest is going to data management and surveillance programs and improving the capability of the Hawaii State Laboratory with new and upgraded equipment.

Emily Roberson,PhD,  who was recently hired to head the contact tracing effort, said she has reorganized the contact tracing effort to provide more efficiency, more accuracy, and more information to the public.  She said the state has 126 people working on contact tracing and 13 support staff.  Although the population in the state warrants around 400 to 500 contact tracers, Dr. Roberson said contact tracers function as part of a team, and the state has to have an entire team to address the pandemic, so she was hesitant to put out a number.

Hawaii County’s cumulative case count is now 159, after adding today’s 7 new cases, with the number of active cases at 26.  Earlier today, Mayor Harry Kim and Talmadge Magno of Hawaii County Civil Defense indicated they thought there would be 4 new today, and even with that, Mayor Kim said he is considering additional restrictions.  He said most of the new cases he knew about are in residents who reside in the Hilo area, and many are not wearing masks or practicing other known COVID-19