The Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard for Saturday, August 15, at 7:27 a.m.:

Worldwide cases: 21,280,608      Worldwide deaths:  767,422

U.S. cases:   5,335,398    U.S. deaths: 168,903

According to the Dashboard, the reported worldwide cases increased by 284,679 in the last 24 hours.  The worldwide death toll in the past two days increased by 6,533.

According to the Johns Hopkins Dashboard, the United States has added 65,530 cases in the last 24 hours, and the number of people who have died from  COVID-19 have increased by 1,375.

In Hawaii, as of Friday afternoon, the state’s total count was 4,543, with 2,747 current active cases.    The State Department of Health on Friday afternoon said Hawaii Island has 22 active cases, with 5 new as of Friday and 144 cumulative.

A concern about the virus is not just how many cases there are, but how many people with COVID-19 need hospitalization.  As of Friday, Lt. Gov. Dr. Josh Green reported that 173 people with COVID-19 were hospitalized, with 41 people in the Intensive Care Unit.  The concern is overrunning the state’s hospital capacity and also the capacity of healthcare professionals to deal with the influx.

Another concern in the state is whether and how the State Department of Health is doing contact tracing.  Health officials nationally have said contact tracing is one key to stopping the spread of the virus (along with the individual actions of mask wearing, distancing, and hand washing).

On Thursday, the Governor announced the State DOH has hired Emily Roberson, PhD, from Hawaii Pacific University to head up contact tracing for the state, but Dr. Roberson was not present at the briefing.

After an unannounced visit to the State DOH a week ago, State Senators found only a few tracers, some with case loads of 100 to 192, and the HGEA has filed a grievance against the state for requiring the few tracers to work nights and weekends and for not adding appropriate numbers of contact tracers.  Lt. Gov. Green has said a whistleblower had alerted him and other officials that the DOH was not doing adequate contact tracing.

On Friday, U.S. Rep Tulsi Gabbard called, as she has for weeks, for the resignations of DOH Director Bruce Anderson and State Epidemiologist Sarah Park, who have both long said the DOH had the situation under control.  The whistleblower, an epidemiologist with DOH,  revealed that all new cases go through only 9 investigators, who are overwhelmed by the work load, and said there are too few people to call all those infected nor those who may have been exposed.

Click here for Friday’s state COVID report.