Maui Coronavirus Updates

Today, more than 800 team members received fresh groceries to make homemade Mother’s Day meals. Today’s effort continues Grand Wailea’s “Share and Care” initiative to support Maui families.

Here on Maui, the Maui Visitor’s Bureau is operating a hotline for people to report violations of the 14-day visitor quarantine.  The number to call is (808) 468-9952.  

The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations has distributed a total of $140,300,082 in unemployment insurance benefits over the past week.

NPR reports that only nine states have exceeded testing minimums estimated by Harvard and are mostly lower population states: Alaska, Hawai‘i, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

For the first time in eight weeks, there have been no new reported cases of coronavirus in Hawaiʻi.  The state’s total count remains unchanged from yesterday at 629 confirmed positive individuals.

Maui’s Hamai Appliance and Ogo Food Truck served up more than 200 lunches for two Kaiser Clinics in Central Maui on Monday. The two companies joined forces to thank medical workers for their ongoing efforts to keep Maui safe amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Salvation Army hosts a special Mother’s Day weekend emergency drive through food distribution event on Maui this Saturday, May 9 at the Queen Kaʻahumanu Center, starting at 9 a.m.  

MEO has processed 1,677 applications for financial assistance through the program, for a total of $707,000 in assistance. The County of Maui allocated $2 million in general funds to the program.

Maui Mayor Michael Victorino provides his daily update on COVID-19 response in Maui County and offers some insight as businesses prepare for a phased reopening of retail stores on Monday, May 11.

The session is expected to last at least six legislative days and will focus on stabilizing the state budget and budget-related bills in anticipation of a $1 billion shortfall in state revenues. “We are reconvening the session because the immediate priority is to stabilize the state budget so that we can avoid drastic cuts and furloughs,” said Speaker Saiki.

In total, the state has processed 141,077 claims as of yesterday (May 6, 2020)–that is just shy of 63% of the total number of claims received. Of the claims that have been processed to date, 100,602 claims were paid out–that represents just under 72%.  The residual amount of 40,000 are claims that were denied. The state currently has in process 84,510 claims, which is the priority at this time.

In celebration of Motherʻs Day, internationally acclaimed artist Makana will be hosting a livestream concert on his Facebook page. 

As of noon on Thursday, May 7, 2020, there are 629 cases of COVID-19 identified in Hawaiʻi with 3 new cases on the island of Oʻahu. The Hawaiʻi State Department of Health reports that there were 565 individuals released from isolation; and 74 cases that have required hospitalization. Maui County’s count remain unchanged from yesterday. Of the 116 cases in Maui County, at least 93 have been released from isolation, and 17 have required hospitalization. As of today, there were more than 37,712 individuals tested by clinical and state laboratories.  Of that number, 37,083 were returned negative. In Maui County, a total of 6,691 tests were returned negative to date. To date, there have been 17 COVID-19 related deaths in Hawaiʻi, including 11 on Oʻahu and 6 in Maui County.

Maui Now reached out to Maui Health, seeking answers to some questions raised in recent weeks regarding COVID-19 response efforts at the Maui Memorial Medical Center and policies and procedures relating to recent cases.  The following was compiled after a series of email communications with the Maui Health team which was exchanged over the course of several days. Maui Now learned that a mother who underwent a C-section delivery at the Maui Memorial Medical Center last month later tested positive for COVID-19.

US Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) today announced that 14 health centers across Hawai‘i will receive $3.8 million to expand COVID-19 testing and contact tracing.

Rep. Gabbard emphasized that the next round of emergency funding will be focused on helping state and local governments cover the catastrophic losses they have had due to COVID-19 to help protect public employee salaries.

“We are now receiving requests coming in from San Diego, New York, Maine and multiple countries including the U.K., India and Mexico,” Dr. O’Connell of HNu Photonics said. “We literally stopped work on our NASA contracts to develop this life support medical instrument to support Maui County’s needs to fight the coronavirus.”

Maui Mayor Michael Victorino provides his daily update on COVID-19 response in Maui County and offers some clarification on the Governor’s latest “Safer-at-Home” order for phased reopening of businesses in Hawaiʻi. 

The Hawai‘i Department of Transportation is coordinating the reopening of stations for Periodic Motor Vehicle Inspections (PMVI or Safety Checks) starting Friday, May 15.

Over the period, covering all of April and six days in March, Maui saw 1,621 air visitors on 61 trans-Pacific flights, including 358 visitors, 594 residents, 122 intended residents, 546 crew members and a single individual in transit to another location. A large portion of those who arrived said they came to visit friends or relatives.