LIHU‘E — Officials continue to investigate two clusters on island, Kaua‘i District Health Officer Dr. Janet Berreman reported Monday.
“One of these is a restaurant cluster involving seven people with confirmed COVID-19, including employees and patrons. The other is a newly identified cluster in an education setting, with six people confirmed to have COVID-19. More cases may be identified as the investigations continue,” Berreman said. “We thank both establishments for cooperating with the DOH’s investigations and communications.”
The restaurant cluster is Tahiti Nui in Hanalei, including cases among restaurant workers and diners, according to the DOH.
Last week, the Hawai‘i Department of Education released its first cluster incident report, which stated there was one case reported off-campus at Kapa‘a High School. Berreman confirmed that this new educational cluster is different.
As of the state’s last COVID-19 Cluster investigation report on Aug. 5, the DOH was looking at one educational setting which led to eight infections, and one shelter, which led to six.
Monday, the county recorded 11 new cases of COVID-19 among three visitors and eight residents. Five of the 11 cases are in children.
Six of the cases are related to travel, four to associated with the mainland and two with interisland travel. The remaining five cases are considered community-acquired. All five of the community-acquired infections are close contacts of previously announced cases or tied to a new cluster.
The county has 103 active cases, with 96 isolating at home and four in the county’s isolation facility. Three are hospitalized.
“We are very concerned about the spike in cases on our island and across the state,” Mayor Derek Kawakami said Monday during the county’s COVID-19 briefing. “With the spread of the delta variant, increased travel and school back in session, we are asking for your help to protect our keiki.”
Of the last 95 cases on island, 25 were in children, Kawakami reported.
Those under 12 are not eligible for a vaccine.
“We want this school year to be a success,” Berreman said. “If you or your student is sick, please do not go to school. Stay home and call your doctor. Please don’t risk getting your student’s classmates and their families sick.”
The county is currently on the fifth of its six-tier system that dictates the different levels of restrictions and mandates.
“The county is considering ways to help mitigate this current spike in cases,” Kawakami’s Chief of Staff Sarah Blane said on Sunday. “At this point, we would like to avoid an across-the-board change in tiers if at all possible, as most businesses and activities have been able to operate safely.”
The county is, however, looking at reducing social gathering sizes.
“Updates will be provided as decisions are made,” Blane said. “In the meantime, we know the most effective mitigating measures are to get vaccinated if you are able, and continue to diligently wear your masks.”
Monday’s cases bring the number of active cases to 103, with three hospitalized, and 722 cumulative cases. Kaua‘i’s cumulative case count includes 668 confirmed locally, eight probable, and 46 positive cases diagnosed elsewhere, as they received their pre-travel test results after arriving on island.
If everything had stayed oped this would have been over a year ago.
Make sure you include the three fatalities. There’s no mention of the latest death.
I suggest that the county have a program which permits businesses with a fully vaccinated staff to post a notice, like the current restaurant health rating notice, that all employees are fully vaccinated. So if you care that you are going into a “safe” business you will know and if you are a non-vaxer risk taker you can go to a different business.
Personally I would like to see vaccine passports, like Paris, which limit access to only vaccinated persons, but that would probably be too much to handle for the anti-vassers.
We’re finally getting a tiny bit of information on which Kauai businesses have CV clusters?’!? Wow. That’s progress
“Monday, the county recorded 11 new cases of COVID-19 among three visitors”…….this is happening daily now, VISITORS in the case count. But wait, I thought that VISITORS were pure as the driven snow, that they were NOT carrying the virus and spreading it while vaccinated, what gives???!!! Why are they getting sick?? One carrying visitor can infect a heck of a lot of people here on the island, yet our government leaders crack down on residents. Wake up Mayor Kawakami!!
Aloha Doug.
It sounds like there are quite a few Kauai residents leaving island for mainland and likely contracting it there as well. This is America. Kauai/Hawaii is a state of the union last time I checked. Interstate travel IS a right and privilege in the USA. That is likely how a guy named “Doug” made to Kauai before coming a resident. Lets start acting like AMERICANS and take precautions, protect our elderly and Keiki. However it is time to live our lives. You can do both. If you choose to hide in your home, please do (order all your food and services). But do not try to keep our relatives, children, students, and other taxpayers from traveling freely. Especially if they are vaccinated and responsible. COVID IS NOT GOING AWAY……..
Pretty sure if you do the math, the majority of all the cases are residents, not tourists. In your example, 69% of the cases were residents. Which is pretty much the ratio every day. And as reported, those 69% are many times residents going to the mainland without vaccination and returning home with covid. And I would argue that one carrying resident can spread the same or more as one tourist. Blaming tourists isn’t the way out of this. Vaccinations are.
One resident that visits the mainland and returns infected can also infect a heck of a lot of people. Get out of your “blame the visitor” mental box. Could it be the visitor contracted it while on island? Wake up Doug!!
Because the vaccinated shed the virus.
RE: Josh
The only reason we’re getting restaurant details is because Nanea Marston made it so, and even circulated a video on FB asking people to get tested if they were at the Tahiti Nui anytime after July 31st. She did the right thing just like Rob’s, Troy’s, and the Brunch Babe’s did back in May.
Information like this should be readily available to the public. It’s nobody’s fault if someone tests positive, it isn’t breaking any HIPAA rules, and shouldn’t be detrimental to their business. If anything, I’d rather spend my money at one of those establishments in the future simply because they cared enough about the Community to come forward!
The Kilauea cluster has potential to infect many unsuspecting people in our North shore community with the Kilauea Christian Academy having Covid start in their pre-school. No masks on students or staff worn, few vaccinated, and the principal supporting this irresponsible behavior in the face of this new outbreak of the Delta variant. Whole families will then spread to others in our community and keep us who are vaccinated and wearing masks doing all the heavy lifting here to keep this contained. When will there be natural consequences and public reporting of where these outbreaks are occurring. Tahiti Nui restaurant and bar went public but a church can’t be as responsible and caring of its neighbors? What ever happened to love thy neighbor?
Yes, quit hiding.
So this makes sense. Make kids go to school just when the highly contagious Delta variant is hitting. What kid always tells their parents they don’t feel well? Some parents will send them anyways and some kids won’t even have symptoms. It’s more of a matter of how fast and how many kids are going to get sick.
Sure the kids need to go to school, but they needed to go to school last year when we had no cases, yet they didn’t open the schools then? Now it’s suddenly okay with the most cases we’ve ever had? All the young ones aren’t vaccinated and they are getting sicker with the new variants. I guess they have decided the tourist industry is more important than the kids now.
Mayor Kawakami, is asking for help from everyone, but antivaxxers are the worst troublemakers, they keep spreading lies and making people scared of taking vaccine. So now, the antivaxxers are getting covid really bad according to the all the news everywhere. Antivaxxers are the virus spreaders. you know who they are…the ones that refuse to wear a mask, or they wear the mask below the nose and chin after they walk in the stores, they fight in airplanes, they gather in big groups without masks and tell each other no need mask. They wanna play with fire they gonna get burn and then they gonna cry out “help me help me” “I should have taken the vaccine!” “I should have kept my mask on!”
So the moral of this story is: health is priceless, no scared wearing a mask, washing your hands, keep your distance, and most especially no scared taking a vaccine that will save your life and keep you breathing.
Better to be safe than sorry and regretting it! (that’s what an antivaxxer said before he died from covid delta variant)
Wait… wasn’t the Tahiti Nui owner the first business on Kauai to demand that all employees get vaccinated or no job! Don’t forget to get your vaccine to protect you!!!
Beeze,
No; you wait. In fact; do your homework before you run your mouth when you don’t know what you’re talking about. The restaurant requiring employees be vaccinated is Tiki Iniki not Tahiti Nui.
Had you cared about the truth instead of being a lazy troublemaker you could have found this out easily. Instead you choose to try and fan the flames. This is how lies and misinformation get started. Shame on all of you who, like Beeze, are guilty of spreading garbage.
take the vaccine and your soul is bound on earth forever
your dna is changed and there’s a patent on gmos so you are now owned by the cabal
wake up and do some research