LIHU‘E — Health officials reported another record number of new COVID-19 cases on Kaua‘i on Saturday, with 16 new cases reported on May 1 and evidence of several clusters on the island.
All 16 cases are adult Kaua‘i residents whose sources of infection are considered community-acquired.
Health officials’ investigations last week have also determined that multiple clusters of disease transmission were traced back to two Kaua‘i restaurants.
“A number of our recent new COVID cases spent time at Rob’s Good Times Grill in Lihu‘e and at Troy’s Bar in Lihu‘e between April 16 and 29, and we have evidence that disease transmission took place,” said Dr. Janet Berreman of the state Department of Health Kaua‘i District Health Office.
“If you were at Rob’s Good Times Grill or Troy’s Bar from Friday, April 16 through Thursday April 29, you may have been exposed to a confirmed case of COVID-19, and we encourage you to get tested as soon as possible,” she said.
According to the DOH, individuals who were infectious with COVID-19 also attended the ‘Ekolu Mea Nui drive-in concert at Vidinha Stadium in Lihu‘e on April 24 and the Sheraton Kaua‘i Coconut Beach Resort Brunch Babes show in Waipouli on April 17 or 18.
While COVID-19 guidelines were in place at both events, county officials urge individuals who attended any of these performances to consider being tested if they develop symptoms or are concerned.
Saturday, the DOH reported Kaua‘i is now averaging new cases a day over 14 days.
According to an average of the number of daily cases reported from April 25 to May 1, Kaua‘i was averaging 8.7 cases over seven days as of Saturday. According to the Kaua‘i Business and Recreational Guidelines for COVID-19, that puts Kaua‘i into Tier 1, which is triggered when there is a 7-day case count average of eight or higher.
Kaua‘i, however, is still in Tier 4 of the county’s COVID guidelines, according to a Friday update from Mayor Derek Kawakami.
Kawakami said a move down a tier could be imminent, but said “any additional restriction should address the current cause of transmission,” pointing out the tier chart was created “many months ago, when we were in a different situation.”
So, County of Kaua‘i hasn’t made any moves to change tiers, yet.
“At this time, our Incident Management Team is reviewing all of our options to reach our best path forward, one that will help us to contain our case counts quickly in order for us to get back up and running. We will update you as soon as we’ve made a determination on any new rule or restriction,” Kawakami said Friday.
Saturday, DOH maps showed the greatest concentration of people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Kaua‘i in the past 14 days stretched roughly from Lihu‘e to Anahola.
Saturday’s cases bring the number of active cases to 66, with 315 cumulative cases. Kaua‘i’s cumulative case count includes 278 confirmed locally, two probable, and 35 positive cases diagnosed elsewhere, as they received their pre-travel test results after arriving on island. All active cases are in isolation, and close contacts are being identified, directed to quarantine and offered testing.
Testing is available today from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Wilcox Medical Center in Lihu‘e.
Free testing at the Kaua‘i War Memorial Convention Hall is available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Upon arrival at the test center, you will receive an appointment time to return later in the day. Appointments are given on a first-come, first-served basis.
There are a maximum of 350 appointments a day.
Testing is also available through primary-care physicians, hospitals and urgent-care clinics.
Health officials suggest those who are feeling sick should isolate immediately, stay away from household members and not go out — including to work or school — unless you are seeking testing or to get health care.
Those who have been vaccinated should still be tested if they believe they may have been exposed or feel sick.
“We would like to thank the community for your quick response to get tested, and we especially thank these businesses for their cooperation and willingness to work together to prevent further transmission of this disease,” said Berreman.
“I am also grateful for our business community and those taking the right steps to protect the health and safety of our people,” said Kawakami. “We know what needs to be done to stop the spread of this virus. Please wear your mask, avoid large gatherings, get tested if you’ve been exposed, and get vaccinated if you’re able.”
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Jessica Else, editor, can be reached at 245-0457 or jelse@thegardenisland.com.
I don’t feel sorry for anyone who is going out in groups now without being vaccinated. They have had plenty of warning.
The article reports that by virtue of not mentioning it that Not one of the positive tested people were hospitalized, and we know that after 2 weeks of their natural immune response, these people’s immune systems will give them immunity against Covid, and be Non-Contagious, and they will as a result be Herd Immune.
Where are there complaints of people who are lucky to be positive
Mayor Derek is highly concerned over the possible long term effects of Covid virus.
Yet Mayor Derek has Not shown or spoken and apparently has NO CONCERN WHATSOEVER about the long term effects of the experimental Vaccines being given to the youth, adults, and elderly population of Kauai.
Since Derek has no formal or professional training in the study of disease, much less the more important study of Health and Wellness, we are only really hearing from his handlers, those who are spoon feeding him the dis-information that is directed at selling the Vaccines.
Talk about getting to the highest elected official on the island and “keeping him in the dark. and fed only you know what”, hey he ain’t a mushroom. Why can’t Derek get advice from Health professionals, people who promote Health, it makes sense that Healthy people aren’t getting sick when being positive with Covid, and certainly aren’t dying with Covid.
Well wake up !
We only hear about the 3 of the most popular vaccines: Pfizer/ Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, and Astrazeneca.
But SinoVac from China we never even hear about, in spite of the $billions of dollars of other goods we buy from them.
Why are so many vaccines competing for your dollars. All the vaccines were created in laboraríeis at warp speed, with little or no concern for your safety, instead rushed to you by way of Emergency Authorization, meaning safety was ignored.
Pfizer / Moderna are not even allowed to be called a vaccine, because they have no attenuated or inactive, or “killed” virus in the injection. So what are the Pfizer / Moderna injections? The FDA allowed them only to be called UNTESTED EXPERIMENTAL GENE THERAPY.
But what Genes are they injecting into you or already have injected into you, and they want you to get a double dose (of danger) ?
No one has come forward to even explain what Genes they are putting into you, much less what those Genes will do inside your body. Normally you inherit your Genes from your parents, but these genes are so far kept secret it seems, they are made in a laboratory and from what chemicals are they made from? More Petrochemicals, which all cause cancer?
So Derek, if out of need for our safety you are concerned about the long term effects of the Covid 19 virus, just another annual, seasonal, virus that has allegedly killed less than the regular annual seasonal flu’s going back several years, why aren’t you concerned about the long term effects of the mystery Genes in the Pfizer/ Moderna un-vaccine? Why isn’t Dr. Janet sharing this information with you, or you with us, your innocent constituents, who are ignorant about virus and vaccines and Gene Therapies.
After all, the Covid virus enters our bodies via the natural portals of entry, namely the eyes (what no mandatory eye GOGGLES), nose, mouth, and ears (if you have a broken ear drum), and the urinary tract and even anus, and/or an open wound like a cut or scratch.
Those normal portals of entry are readily accessible to the protection, of the primary defense of our immune system.
Injection of anything into our bodies by-passes the primary safety of our immune system. Vaccines by-pass our body’s safety mechanisms, the Immune System.
And people are afraid of an annual seasonal Covid virus that 98% of the people infected have zero to only mild symptoms and require no hospitalizations, but instead run the risks of vaccines and fake vaccines with added unknown Genes? And on Kauai only 7 people have been hospitalized? That’s only 0.0001% of the population.
More than 99% of those who died while also positive with covid virus, were elderly, had multiple end of life diseases and taking daily multiple toxic and some lethal end of life prescription drugs for decades even 40 years . The evidence points more to death by age, disease, and prescription drugs, than it does death by virus.
The medical industry needs to share some blame for the deaths, as their motive of Disease Care is not to get people Well and Healthy, but is instead to manage your diseases (Obesity, Heart, Stroke, High Blood Pressure, Cancer, and Liver, Lung, and Kidney failure).
Managing disease means to allow disease to continue by daily use of prescription drugs, until the body fails from the degeneration of the organs or cancered parts of the body and the long term poisonous effects of the prescription drugs.
There are 350 million Americans, but 4 Billion (4,000,000,000) drug prescriptions are sold each year. 80% of our nations people are on prescription drugs. Making us a sick and weak nation.
America needs to redo our Disease Care System. We must turn to the Cause of these killer long term diseases, and eliminate or avoid the Causes. We must rely on prevention of disease, and getting well from disease by relying on Health Care, not relying on prescription drugs Disease Care. Health and a Healthy Immune System defeats virus infections.
The FDA (our US Food and Drug Administration) only allowed Johnson and Johnson (J&J) and Astrazeneca to be called Vaccines.
J&J causes blood clots in the brain, and what are the lung term effects? Is it Derek’s responsibility to find out?
And Astrazeneca has Chimpanzee monkey virus in it. Sounds scary, and long term?
Dr. Fauci is a Disease Expert, and he and the other Disease Experts are not winning against this annual seasonal flu virus, Covid.
It’s about time we let the Health Care Experts come forward.
Let them lead our nation back to Health. We are less and less a Great Nation, the more and more we take prescription drugs and rely on Disease Care.
The internet has many Health Care experts but they are not given a national voice like Fauci, 1 mask, no mask, 2 masks, he doesn’t know what the heck is going on.
I write to implore readers not to take your comments seriously. The mainstream vaccines are mainstream because they have passed clinical safety trials. Safety has been foremost of concern, not at all ignored. That is a mistruth (sometimes called a “lie”) that you wrote.
Further, the mRNA based vaccines’ (Pfizer and Moderna) ingredients are clearly publicized and well knowable. There are no secrets here. Stop spreading ignorance based fear. There are no genes in these vaccinations per se. They provide the subjects’ protein synthesis machinery with the message to biosynthesize components of the corona virus spike protein to be recognized by the subjects’ immune system to make antibodies that also recognize and target the actual corona virus if acquired by the subjects.
The information encoded in mRNA is not in any way installed into subjects’ genes (DNA). This is contra science that you offer from a place of a very little bit of information being dangerous. Not only that, but your typing is erroneous.
Another of your many false statements is the statement that “all petrochemicals cause cancer”. Who is your gullible audience?
The statement that “injection. … bypasses the immune system” does not hold up to Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine, the common flu vaccines, or the corona virus vaccine.
There is so much ignorance and misinformation in your posting that one is left to wonder who moderates this forum? Your posting is an intellectual attack upon rationality and public domain knowledge.
Safer to hang with tourists.
At this point on Kaua’i, if you have not gotten vaccinated and don’t wear a mask you are a big fat target and playing Russian roulette with covid. It’s your choice but I’m vaccinated and very assured I won’t be needing one of nine ICU beds available due to covid, you might. It’s your choice.
Well Mayor K, sounds like being on tier 3 *would* have prevented this community spread: gathering limits, capacity limits etc could have mitigated our current situation. I’ve never understood this hesitation to act because that community spread is still happening right now. The cases aren’t going to magically start declining once community spread has taken hold – you have to ACT. The businesses need to support this because there’s no business gonna happen if we’ve got 15-30 cases of Covid per day. And that’s what’s next people.
The research shows about 13% of those with Covid who have even one underlying condition end up in the ICU. With 66 current cases 13% of that is 9. We have 9 ICU beds. Do the math and shut down. How can you even hesitate to keep our island residents and tourists safe. We have community spread now that will only get worse. Only about 75% are wearing masks as tourists are pouring in from places where that is not even encouraged. We are in a crisis. Act now.
Do you really…really…want to shut down again? The economic and mental health toll would be WAY more than we could take. Testing has gone way up…therefore so has the number of positives…but NO hospitalizations (fingers crossed it continues that way). Everyone else has figured out how to manage through this…we can too. When…how…does it end? We HAVE to move forward and figure out how to live with and through this.
We are in a crisis.
No one in the hospital.
Tourists are not the problem. We are.
Locals are to blame not the tourist, everyday I look at Poipu Beach Park and see local families gather without mask. Its been the locals who travel, careless when they do and bring this back to the island.
This has been the case since day one of Covid! Over 80% of the cases on island can be traced to negligence by our friends, neighbors and other family members.
For those that don’t want to get vaccinated, you have been warned for over a year, where a mask, keep 6 feet away and even when vaccinated may still need to wear a mask when in groups indoors.
The Mayor has done a excellent job balancing the needs of all of Kauai and his leadership has allowed Kauai to stay safe. Now as the numbers go up its up to every Kauai resident to do their part.
Fact check – Kauai is part of the USA, and is is open. 98.8 percent of cases don’t end in death, all Kupuna, County workers, food servers, medical personal , teachers, police, fire, and all 16 or older should have been vaccinated by now.
Now perhaps, we can get back to solving the real issues, lack of affordable housing , drug usage among the youth spiking, traffic and must raise property taxes on new transplants to pay for infrastructure. New tax revenues are badly needed for a island that has seen it population grow by 50% in the last 20 years.
How about Kauai enforce Federal labor employment laws as their are over 10k living here that drive cars, take up housing and keep the minimum wage artificially low (based on supply and demand of labor)
I keep on waiting for someone to connect the DOTS that the USA thrives on cheap illegal labor to keep the lowest earners at the bottom. For those that buy into the BS that America welcomes immigrants look at your history. Who built the railroads after the Civil War. America loves cheap labor at the expense of those in the inner cities at the bottom of the labor pool with little or no chance to move up.
Kauai look at your history of white man exploiting labor, Chinees, Japanese , Filipino, and now the island is happy importing the next wave of cheap labor, Hispanics that are washing dishes, cutting lawns and cleaning houses all taking jobs from locals that would do these jobs for 25hr not the cheap labor being imported that takes house, uses cars, and likely being subsidized with SNAP.
Thank god we still have some reasonable people here. Great take
Been hearing a lot of Donald Trumpisms coming out of CKO these days. The Friday video attributes the additional positives to more testing! Sounds all tooooo familiar to me, Flashback to Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
So, yes, I suppose now CKO just sitting on their hands *hoping* it will go away, *hoping* that by associating what is now distributed community spread to a couple of bars or restaurants, that it will now just take care of itself (as in, “one day it’s just going to magically disappear.” But problem is, once it’s in the community, it’s in the community and runs from there. Now they’re starting to say, “it’s not travel related. Look at the numbers”. But this ignores a) this got started by travelers and b) there’s probably a high baseline of sick travelers that will never test positive here because they show up, spread COVID, and leave. They aren’t going to get tested here if they’re on vacation!
What’s next – are they going to tell us to drink Chlorox and shove a UV light up our noses.
Ridiculous politicians.
Travelers are infecting us, both visitor and local, make no mistake about that. Locals just spread it faster due to gathering with family and work, but visitor cases are being logged too. Seems like the bubble resorts that a lot were whining about did their job. Now we face more restrictive tiers and less visitors because Kauai will soon become the Covid capital of the US. Be careful what you wish for!
Is it still the law then on Kaua’i to wear a face mask while in public, despite CDC rules that vaccinated people need not wear any face mask while walking outside? So that people will know who got vaccinated.
Local people don’t realize how fast this virus killed off filipino nurses in NYC, and how dangerous it is to people of filipino extraction. Yet, they continue to cluster without masks at garage parties, beaches, and picnics like it’s nothing. Think about all of the kapuna who pay your rent, let you live in their homes, and babysit your kids while you’re working. Think about watching them suffocate. Mr. Mayor. MR. MAYOR!! It’s not a matter of IF this pandemic gets worse on Kauai, but WHEN. We’re supposed to be at Tier one. Who paid you off to keep it at Tier 5??
Standard coronavirus (Cold) going around. The sheep run and get tested and poof, Covid cases on the rise once again. Just the way Kawakami and Zuckerberg like it.
On another note, will Zuckerbergs 57,000 Sq ft single family house and underground hospital at Pilaa be finished soon? Looking for a room to rent. Asking for a friend.
Sorry Rob Silverman owner of Rob’s Good Times Bar and Grill I am a patron except during the Pandemic. You need to shutter your place for a couple of days to sanitize. You can reopen at 30% capacity for social distancing. A few tourists visit your place and they infect other customers.
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Tonite show guest speakers from Rob’s Good Times Bar/Grill.