As the members of the State House Select Committee on COVID-19 expressed frustration over a lack of information from the State Government, including State Department of Health, Gov. David Ige announced he and Mayor Kirk Caldwell have met about the possibility of new restrictions for the island of O’ahu.  Ige has made no announcement yet, but with more than 3,300 active cases of COVID-19, it’s likely such an announcement will come this week.

On the neighbor islands, the situation is better, with far fewer active cases.  The Big Island, according to State Department of Health, has 22 active cases, with 149 cumulative.  There were 2 new cases today.

In this morning’s update by the State House Select Committee , House Speaker Scott Saiki said the Committee has asked the State Department of Health for information on how and where people are getting exposed, in order to help create a communication strategy to help everybody understand the realities of exposure.  Members of the Communications Subcommittee, Ray Vara, CEO of Hawaii Pacific Health; Dr. Mark Mugiishi, President of HMSA; Carl Bonham, Executive Director of University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization; and Micah Kane, Executive Director of Hawaii Community Foundation, said the State needs to release the basic data so it can be used as information to tell the stories that will resonate with people and help them understand how their actions can determine what happens to the state’s economy and health.  They are intertwined.  As Bonham said, “The virus IS the economy.”

Speaker Saiki said the Committee had arranged for 200 UH School of Nursing students to be trained in contact tracing. This week, he’s received numerous emails from nurses who have contacted the Department of Health and are ready to volunteer, but they’ve not been contacted.  In addition, the DOH developed a contact tracing class for University of Hawaii and 450 people have been trained.  Most have not been hired.

When asked whether the island of O’ahu had gone past the point of no return on contact tracing, with so many active cases and an insufficient number of contact tracers on staff at the State DOH, Vara said “We haven’t heard anything to suggest we have enough.”

United States Senator Brian Schatz said with $50 million in CARES Act Federal Funding given to Hawaii for contact tracing and testing, there is no reason for contact tracing to be in the situation it is.  He said he and his staff cannot figure out what the state is doing with the Federal funding.  He said the City and County of Honolulu has also offered additional funding to Department of Health, which it has rejected.

The letter from House Speaker Scott Saiki to the Department of Health:

08-06-20-SPKR-LTR-DOH-Anderson_FINAL-CORRECTED-20200811

The response from the State Department of Health:

DOH-Response-to-Speaker-Saiki-08-16-20

Map of O’ahu showing location of COVID-19 cases as of Mon. 8/17/20, courtesy of Ryan Ozawa.  As of this date O’ahu has 4,754 cumulative cases and more than 3,000 active cases.