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.
Contagious period? … when exactly is that? What about for the asymptomatic?
Other travelers may or may not have been asymptomatic and contagious/infectious.
…protect the old, free the young…..
From a newer article, in case you miss it:
“The infectious period for COVID-19 starts about two days before symptoms do, and the disease is spreadable for about 10 days, Berreman said. “There are case-by-case variations, but this is the general timeframe,” she said.”
Question for Ms. Berreman. What is the time between a person’s exposure to Covid-19 and the time when they become infectious?
I’ve read this article several times and I do not understand how somebody gets Covid19 from mainland contact but not infectious during travel? I wish that was explained further for public information
Let me get this straight, Hawaii has had 12,203 cases of CV-19, 10,215 of which showed no symptoms. Is that’s roughly 84% of tested people showing NO symptoms at all or just after they were released? Huge difference and needs clarification. If 84% never showed any symptoms one must seriously question the testing efficacy. Also the inflated deaths in the USA of 205,032 leaves out the fact that 90% of these deaths had two or more serious co-morbid factors (read serious health conditions) that also contributed to their demise. 99.5% of the rest of us will survive the “COVID cold” with either no symptoms or minor to moderate ones.
They were infected before setting foot here, right? Since we don’t know exactly when they were exposed, weren’t they potentially contagious “carriers” the days leading up to being diagnosed? This is why we quarantine for 14 days. But not knowing when one is exposed, makes for the possibility that they were contagious on the plane. The “infectious period” could have been the time of the flight.
CDC:
“The onset and duration of viral shedding and the period of infectiousness for COVID-19 are not yet known with certainty.”
“Based on existing literature, the incubation period (the time from exposure to development of symptoms) ranges from 2–14 days.”
The other passengers and (if applicable), hotel employees deserve to be warned.
U.S. population 331 million, U.S. COVID-19 deaths 205,031. Do the math.. 205,031/331,000,000= 0.000619% death rate.. hmmmmmm??