The Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard for Sunday, August 16, at 7:27 a.m.:

Worldwide cases: 21,527,747      Worldwide deaths:  772,370

U.S. cases:  5,379,914     U.S. deaths: 169,745

According to the Dashboard, the reported worldwide cases increased by 247,139 in the last 24 hours.  The worldwide death toll in the past two days increased by 4,948.

According to the Johns Hopkins Dashboard, the United States has added 44,516 cases in the last 24 hours, and the number of people who have died from  COVID-19 have increased by 842.   If this trend continues, this would be a stabilization of both cases and deaths, which formerly were more than 60,000 new cases daily and around 1,000 deaths daily.

In Hawaii,  on Saturday, 284 new cases of COVID-19 were reported.  That brought the state to 4,825 total cases, with around 2,977 active cases.

As of Saturday, the Big Island had at least 20 active cases, with 145 cumulative.  Saturday brought 3 new case confirmations to the island, and on Friday, there were 5 new on Hawaii Island.  One bit of good news is that the two state prison facilities on the Big Island, Hawaii Community Correctional Center and Kulani Correctional Facility are reporting no cases of COVID-19, although 49 inmates at HCCC are in isolation.

Concerning is that on Saturday, the State Department of Health reported that there had been 3,033 test results reported, and the positivity rate was 9.36%, nearly double the 5% target suggested by the CDC, and far greater than the less than 2% the state saw in the first 5 months of the pandeic.

The good news for Hawaii on Saturday is that no additional people died of COVID-19, with the state’s death toll from the virus standing at 40.