HSTA reaches school reopening agreement with state of Hawaii
Hawaii--Biggest Health Improvement During COVID-19
Aggressive contact tracing by state identifies new COVID cases
KHON: .. A spike in COVID-19 case numbers on Sunday are largely due to a cluster of 17 Honolulu cases all associated with attending a funeral, according to the State’s Covid-19 joint information center.
The state said contact tracing also identified six cases in Leeward Oahu associated with known clusters, and all of the cases are in isolation.
In addition to the 23 Oahu cases, the Department of Health reported two new Kauai cases associated with a known cluster reported last week, one case on Maui, and a case on Hawaii Island with travel to Georgia.
State Epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park explained to KHON2 how the process works.
“[Contact tracing] is absolutely critical because as soon as we know about any cases, whether it’s reported to us by a clinician or reported to us via lab result, we immediately act on those reports and the case is assigned to an investigator to find that person, interview that person, and to determine any close contacts,” she said.
She said the process begins within 24 hours of the positive result.
“As soon as we determine that list of close contacts then we’re trying to contact those people to make sure that they know they’ve been in contact with someone and they need to be in quarantine,” she explained.
She said it’s critical to quickly identify the contacts so they can be isolated immediately and the likelihood they’ve exposed others is dramatically reduced.
“It’s critical because, as demonstrated with the case counts today, the nice thing for us, if there is any nice silver lining out of this, is that because we had done that a lot of these cases, or pretty much all of them were already in quarantine,” she said. “Because we had identified them and the testing that we were doing as part of our investigation just confirms that they not only had been exposed but actually had been infected.”…
read … Aggressive contact tracing by state identifies new COVID cases
Some of Abigail Kawananakoa’s items are going up for auction. That’s raising concerns
HNN: … More than 400 items belonging to Hawaiian royalty descendant Abigail Kawananakoa are headed for the auction block.
They include furniture, works of art, silverware and Polynesian artifacts like a Maori jade war club where bidding begins at $185 and a ceremonial stone ax which has a starting price of $104.
“It’s actually astonishing and surprising that anyone would have the audacity to sell these private possessions of Ms. Kawananakoa,” said Megan Kau, attorney for Kawananakoa’s former housekeepers, who are opposing the auction.
In a court document, Hawaiian Studies professor Lilikala Kameeleihiwa believes some objects could predate Western contact in Hawaii, such as a kukui nut lamp that’s being listed at $69….
But Bruce Voss, Kawananakoa’s attorney, questions whether the items have much historic or cultural value.
He said the items came from his client’s Punaluu home, which she no longer visits. He added that Kawananakoa is facing financial problems due to the lengthy court battle over her fortune….
Background: Kawananakoa Estate: Sex, Drugs, and Inequality
read … Some of Abigail Kawananakoa’s items are going up for auction. That’s raising concerns
Debating Christopher Deedy, again
SA: … Here’s a point of debate among candidates for Honolulu prosecuting attorney: what to do about Christopher Deedy.
It appears the federal special agent, tried twice and acquitted on murder charges, cannot be tried again for manslaughter for the 2011 shooting of Kollin Elderts in Waikiki. That’s the upshot of a U.S. Supreme Court decision against taking up the case.
Current city prosecutors are inclined to pursue a third trial, for first-degree assault. Should they? It sounds like an election question….
read … Debating Christopher Deedy, again
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