LIHU‘E — The two active cases on Kaua‘i are both linked to Mainland travel, but the county is clarifying that neither were infectious during travel, Kaua‘i District Health Officer Dr. Janet Berreman said Monday.
“Neither traveled while they were infectious, and both of them were complying with travel quarantine when they were diagnosed,” Berreman explained during yesterday’s Daily COVID-19 Update.
The county currently has only these two active cases, which were both announced last week after nearly a month of no new infections.
Neither cases was infectious in flight, Berreman said.
“If these cases had flown while they were infectious, we would have worked with the airlines and the Centers for Disease Control to identify possible close contacts and bring them into quarantine if needed,” Berreman said. “Fortunately, neither of these individuals flew during their infectious period.”
Since both cases were in quarantine, Berreman said there was “no broad community exposure.” However, three close contacts were identified and put into quarantine. The positive cases remain in isolation, with the Health Department checking in with all five people daily.
Close contacts are typically household members, caregivers or somebody directly coughed or sneezed on. Depending on circumstances, friends and colleagues could also be close contacts, but that depends on when the contact was made (within two days of when symptoms occurred) and if it was greater than 15 minutes less than 6 feet apart.
Yesterday, the state’s Department of Health reported 90 new COVID-19 cases, all on O‘ahu. There are 1,829 active cases in the state.
To date, the state has identified 12,203 cases, of which, 10,215 have been released from isolation without symptoms.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the global death toll from the coronavirus has surpassed 1 million people yesterday.
The United States accounts for 205,031 of the 1,000,555 deaths worldwide.
