The Department of Health reassured residents Friday that current screening measures are sufficient to prevent recent clusters of new COVID-19 cases on Oahu from spreading to the neighbor islands.
Although Friday had 27 new COVID-19 cases throughout the state — the highest number in a single day since April 2 — DOH Director Bruce Anderson said at a news conference that the state’s measures to control interisland travel likely will reduce the risk of the coronavirus spreading beyond Oahu, where the disease is most prevalent.
“It’s expected that we’re going to see some cases pop up on all the islands, here and there,” Anderson said before adding that the current system of thermal screenings at airports, as well as passengers being required to fill out a form detailing their health and travel histories, will mitigate the spread of the virus between islands.
“We expect to see a case here and there, and in this case, we are isolating the cases and, I think, effectively able to deal with them quite easily,” Anderson said.
All but two of Friday’s new cases were reported on Oahu, which now has had 551 cases, Anderson said. Most of them were related to clusters, various close-knit communities through which viruses can spread quickly.
In particular, as many as 35 recent cases might be associated with a faith community in Waipahu which held family gatherings in a home, while five of Friday’s new cases were associated with adult care homes located on the same property.
The other two cases on Friday happened on Maui and Kauai, bringing their total number of cases to 121 and 22, respectively.
Despite this, Anderson said he still does not believe that traveling from a neighbor island to Oahu is appreciably more dangerous than traveling from Oahu to a neighbor island, pointing out that other states in the nation have had orders of magnitude more cases than Hawaii. For example, Los Angeles County in California alone reported 1,414 new cases Friday, nearly twice the number of total cases in Hawaii since the pandemic began.
Gov. David Ige issued a statement Friday calling the spike in cases both anticipated and manageable.
“It is still manageable, but it serves as a reminder that we must continue to be vigilant in the battle against COVID-19, especially because of the potential harm that the virus can cause to our most vulnerable populations,” Ige’s said.
Ige had said at the beginning of the week that he may have to reinstate the mandatory 14-day-quarantine for interisland travelers if the number of new cases in the state doubles each week for four weeks. Last week, June 7-13, there were 47 new cases statewide. This week, which saw the interisland quarantine lifted on Tuesday, has had 74 cases so far, with today’s numbers yet to come.
State epidemiologist Sarah Park said at Friday’s conference that the DOH is working with the Department of Education to determine how to allow schools to reopen in the fall and what form education will take for the foreseeable future.
“As we move forward, essentially, it will not the same as it was before,” Park said. “I feel very strongly as a pediatrician and as a mother that, for younger children, we shouldn’t be requiring them to wear masks. It’s important for their social development and cues.”
Park said the DOH is advising the Department of Education to allow younger students to keep their masks off in the classroom, while allowing older students to social distance in class.
However, Park also pointed out that children still represent only a very small percentage of COVID-19 cases — five of Friday’s cases were pediatric cases.
“It doesn’t minimize that we want to keep our children protected, but I think it does show that we can open schools safely, and I think it’s important that we do,” Park said.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.