The Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard for Thursday morning, July 9, at 7:34 a.m.:

Worldwide cases: 12,118,667      Worldwide deaths:  551,271

U.S. cases: 3,081,383    U.S. deaths:  132,723

According to the Dashboard, the reported worldwide cases increased by 222,416 in the last 24  hours, and 5,653 deaths due to COVID-19 were reported.

According to Worldometer, 7,146,725 people worldwide have recovered.

According to the Johns Hopkins Dashboard, the United States has added 62,780  cases in the last 24 hours, and deaths attributed to COVID-19 have increased by 957.  In the last month, the United States case count jumped by 1 million cases.  The daily increase in case count is the highest number yet.

According to Worldometer, 1,152,467 people in the U.S. have recovered from COVID-19.

Health officials in the United States continue to be concerned about the rise in cases.  Although many of the latest cases are in young people, less likely to have serious impacts, part of the concern is that the cases may spread to those more vulnerable.

In a press briefing on Wednesday, Dr. Debra Birx of the White House Coronavirus Task Force asked people to wear masks and go back to limiting their gatherings to 10 people or less, after there were numerous large gatherings in recent weeks.   She was specifically focusing on Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas, states which have been experiencing large increases in cases.

Hawaii?  The state has had double-digit increases for days…on Wednesday, 23; on Tuesday, the highest daily count in the state at 41; Monday, only 7; on days before that, 25–24–29–20.  The current state count is 1,094, with 811 released from isolation.  Hawaii Island has 9 active cases, according to Hawaii County Civil Defense, spread around the island with slightly more in the Kailua-Kona area.

Testing has become unavailable or in short supply on the mainland, and that may affect Hawaii.  Roche Labs, which supplies testing materials to Diagnostic Laboratories, one of the two major labs in the state, is reducing its supply to Hawaii because the demand on the mainland is so great.  Diagnostic Labs will need to reduce their testing rate from 800 tests per day to 250 tests per day.  State Department of Health has previously said the state has an overall capacity of 5,000 tests per day, from all laboratories, and officials downplayed the seriousness of the supply shortage.

The State is supposed to reopen travel to Hawaii from out of state on August 1, with travelers who get a COVID-19 test 72 hours in advance not subject to the 14-day quarantine now in effect.  But the spike in cases both on the mainland and here in the state has raised concerns.  Gov. David Ige met yesterday with the County mayors, and plans to meet again today to figure out how to proceed, which might include pushing the “reopening to travel without quarantine” date back.