Two more deaths from COVID-19 were recorded in Hawaii County this week, bringing the county death toll since the pandemic began to 247 people.
The two deaths were of a man and a woman, both over the age of 80. Neither were hospitalized, and it is unknown if either had a preexisting condition.
“We’re still losing kupuna at an average rate of about seven per week here in Hawaii,” said East-West Center infectious disease expert Dr. Tim Brown during a livestream with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Wednesday. “COVID continues to circulate at substantial levels in the population.”
Since mid-May, cases have stabilized throughout the state at an average of 50 new cases per day, but testing has continued to drop, meaning there are likely more active cases than are being reported.
“There’s absolutely no question that our testing is down,” Brown said. “We’re doing about a quarter of the tests now that we were doing last August on a daily basis.”
As a result, wastewater surveillance data, which is collected by the state Department of Health to help predict emerging outbreaks, has shown a possible increase in coronavirus cases for Hawaii County this week.
“The Big Island showed a sudden massive shoot-up,” Brown said of wastewater data. “We haven’t really seen that reflected in cases yet, but I think we need to watch that in the near future.”
In terms of protection, Brown continues to recommend booster vaccinations along with Paxlovid, a prescription medication for patients who test positive for COVID-19.
“When you test positive, if you’re above age 50, you should definitely be getting on Paxlovid,” Brown said. “If you’re not vaccinated, it reduces illness by almost 80%. If you are vaccinated, it’s still reducing it in the 35% to 40% range if you’re in those older age categories.”
Paxlovid is administered via three pills taken twice a day for a five-day period. It needs to be taken within the first five days of developing symptoms for maximum effect.
“It will reduce your chances of basically severe illness and hospitalization,” Brown added. “But it will also reduce your chances of contracting long COVID.”
New data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 6% of all Americans are currently suffering from long COVID-19 symptoms.
“Symptoms of long COVID — fatigue, malaise, brain fog, loss of smell — all of those can continue for long periods in many people,” Brown said. “Long COVID still affects about 10% of all people who get omicron variants.”
Omicron variants remain dominant in Hawaii County and throughout the state.
The omicron variant XBB.1.9.1 accounts for roughly 50% of tested cases in Hawaii County, while other XBB variants account for nearly 100% of Big Island cases.
“So far, there’s no evidence whatsoever that any of these variants have more severity than the original Wuhan strain,” Brown said of the XBB variants. “Omicron is still dangerous, but what’s protecting us is that most of us have either had multiple vaccines or we’ve had previous infections.”
A new booster designed for the XBB variants could be coming this fall to ward off another “tripledemic,” which describes the combined impacts of COVID-19, the flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
“The final recommendations on that will be made by the CDC in October,” Brown said of an XBB-based vaccine, adding that a combined flu/COVID vaccine is unlikely at the moment.
Two new vaccines for RSV were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May for people ages 60 and older.
“If you are worried about RSV, which does kill about 10,000 elderly people in the U.S. every year, it’s probably not a bad idea to get the RSV vaccine, as well,” Brown said.
The amount of people getting booster doses has dropped significantly in Hawaii, with just 22% receiving a booster in the last 12 months. Brown noted that after six months, protection from a vaccine or booster starts to wane greatly.
“By six months, you’re not having much protection against infection,” he said. “There’s still about half of our kupuna who have not received the bivalent vaccine, and they really should be getting that because it will greatly reduce for them their chance of hospitalization and death.”
Email Grant Phillips at gphillips@hawaiitribune-herald.com.