Hawaii reports 64 new COVID-19 cases; statewide total swells to 1,683

HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - The surge of new COVID-19 infections in Hawaii continued Sunday, with 64 new COVID-19 cases reported.

It wasn’t a record day but it’s still far higher than the average of 25 Hawaii has seen in recent weeks.

Of the 64 cases, 55 are are on Oahu, seven are on Maui and two are on Kauai.

On Saturday, the state saw 73 new infections statewide.

With the new infections, the total number of cases reported in Hawaii since the pandemic began swells to 1,683. Of those, 1,179 people have been released from isolation while 163 have been hospitalized.

State Health Director Bruce Anderson said people letting down their guards during July Fourth festivities may have driven the surge in cases in recent days.

“We’re beginning to see more cases among younger to middle-age adults; many who relay stories of attending gatherings, parties, events, or socializing at bars,” Anderson said.

The spike in cases has caused growing calls for the state to delay the planned reopening of public school campuses and even close some sectors of the economy again.

Lt. Gov. Josh Green called the surge “an incredible concern” and said he would support the governor taking a “step back” from the state’s reopening and “limit interactions between people.”

“I think it would be very prudent of us to go back to a position pretty soon where people are just doing take-out from restaurants for a short while, socially distancing from any large groups, and so on,” he said. “We’ve had 800 cases in the last 30 days. We had 800 cases in the first five months.”

He added: “So you can see that means it’s gone up pretty fast, and if we want to get control of this, we’re going to have to really put the brakes on. I think we’re going to have to look very seriously at shutting some significant operations down again for a time.”

Here’s the latest county-by-county breakdown of confirmed positives:

OAHU

• Total cases: 1,345
• Released from isolation: 903
• Required hospitalization: 130
• Deaths: 19

MAUI COUNTY

• Total cases: 156 (includes 2 on Molokai)
• Released from isolation: 124
• Required hospitalization: 26
• Deaths: 6

KAUAI

• Total cases: 45
• Released from isolation: 42
• Required hospitalization: 1
• Deaths: 0

BIG ISLAND

• Total cases: 117
• Released from isolation: 110
• Required hospitalization: 4
• Deaths: 0

UNASSIGNED

• Hawaii residents diagnosed out-of-state: 23
• Hawaii residents who have died out-of-state: 1
• Pending assignment to county: 0

This story will be updated.

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