Cluster of COVID-19 cases tied to Pearl City Nursing Home grows to 10

HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - A total of 10 people have tested positive for COVID-19 at the Pearl City Nursing Home.

Dr. Scott Miscovich, of Premier Medical Group, said Thursday that seven patients and three staff members are confirmed to have the coronavirus.

Officials say the cluster began when a staff member found out they tested positive on Thursday and immediately notified the facility.

Doctors were called to test all employees and residents on Friday, and testing efforts continued through the weekend.

There are a combined total of 300 people at the facility, from staff members to residents.

On Monday, Dr. Miscovich was back out at the nursing home checking on the status of those infected. He shared promising news, saying, “They are very stable. No one has symptoms which is really unusual at this stage, but very very positive.”

The medical team will continue to test the staff members and residents.

Clusters, especially at nursing centers, are alarming due to the vulnerability of patients. Miscovich continues advocating for rapid testing, saying the state should get to a point of running 10,000 tests a day, but is only at 2,500 to 2,800.

“This is serious, and my belief, as we all believe in medicine, is prevention. We don’t want to wait until we are over-running our testing capacity and it’s forcing us to have seven-day turnaround. We need to be preventing and projecting,” he said.

He also believes that more spikes in cases are expected in the coming days.

“Yesterday (Saturday) we just hit our all-time high, and we’re probably just barely seeing our 4th of July bump starting,” Dr. Miscovich previously said.

This story may be updated.

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