Hawaii sees 55 new coronavirus cases, bringing statewide total to 88,440

Dec. 8—Hawaii Department of Health officials reported 55 new confirmed and probable infections today, bringing the state's total since the start of the pandemic to 88, 440 cases.

No new virus-related fatalities were reported today so the statewide COVID-19 death toll remains 1, 033.

The state's official coronavirus-related death toll includes 767 fatalities on Oahu, 140 on Hawaii island, 101 on Maui, 13 on Kauai, one on Molokai and 11 Hawaii residents who died outside the state.

The U.S. coronavirus-related death toll today is over 785, 000 and the nationwide infection tally is more than 49 million.

Today's new confirmed and probable infection count by island includes 28 new cases on Oahu, seven on Hawaii island, three on Maui, 13 on Kauai and four Hawaii residents diagnosed outside the state.

State health officials have been including probable infections in its total case counts. Probable infections include people who never received a confirmatory test but are believed to have had the virus because of their known exposure and symptoms or because of a positive antigen test.

The total number of confirmed and probable coronavirus cases by island since the start of the outbreak are 59, 955 on Oahu, 11, 802 on Hawaii island, 10, 095 on Maui, 3, 223 on Kauai, 244 on Molokai and 145 on Lanai. There are also 2, 976 Hawaii residents who were diagnosed outside of the state.

Health officials also said today that, of the state's total infection count, 1, 241 cases were considered to be active. Officials say they consider infections reported in the past 14 days to be a "proxy number for active cases." The state's total number of active cases decreased today by five.

By island, Oahu has 659 active cases, the Big Island has 163, Kauai has 204 and Maui has 615.

Of all the confirmed Hawaii infection cases, 5, 087 have required hospitalizations, with four new hospitalizations reported today.------This breaking news story will be updated as more information becomes available.------