See a 5 p.m. State Department of Health update–click here–updating the toll to 152 new cases today including 1 new on Big Island.

Hawaii State Department of Health announced that two more people have died of COVID-19.  Both, according to DOH, are “elderly,” meaning 60 or older, and each had unspecified underlying conditions.  That brings the state’s death toll from COVID-19 to 29.

Dr. Sarah Park, speaking of the elderly man, said “The passing of this man really demonstrates how rapidly and invisibly COVID-19 is spreading through our communities, particularly on O‘ahu and particularly associated with clusters.  A close contact of this individual attended a spin class at a gym taught by a person linked to the Hawaiian Airlines cluster.”

The State count of COVID for today was only 53, but the State said it is having difficulty with its electronic reporting system, so this is an undercount.  The numbers were released more than 30 minutes after the expected daily update.  The State will update the count when the technical issues are resolved.  Of the 53 cases, One was on Maui, and 52 are on O’ahu.  The State’s cumulative total is 2,815 with 1,353 active cases.

Hawaii Island is still shown as having 122 cumulative cases, with 7 active.

Several health officials have expressed concern about the ability of the State Department of Health to adequately do contact tracing, but State Health Department Director Bruce Anderson says they have enough.  The State DOH web site says the department has 105 contact tracers, 198 trained, and the ability to “surge” the department to 139 tracers by redeploying existing staff.  Additionally, though not on the web site, the DOH has said 400 new contact tracers have been trained by University of Hawaii, and Anderson said they hired 20 last week and 20 this week.  Mayor Kirk Caldwell said at a press conference earlier this week he has tried unsuccessfully to get the exact number of contact tracers actually doing the job.

Nationwide, the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths continues to rise.  As of noon today, the U.S. has a reported 18.9 million cases and 159,864 deaths.

The State’s noon report, reflecting the 53 additional cases: