County Briefing: COVID Case Counts Declining But Remain Elevated

Mayor Derek Kawakami on Monday thanked everyone who came out and waited in line last week for free COVID test kits.

“These test kits came at the right time for our community,” said Kawakami in a Kaua‘i County briefing video for Monday, Jan. 31. “We thank our partners with the Kaua‘i District Health Office for providing the test kits with federal funding, and our county team for helping meet this high demand.”

The county gave out all of the 15,000 at-home test kids that were available.

“If you didn’t get a home kit or you want a PCR test, our free testing center at the Convention Hall and our mobile testing van now have plenty of capacity available,” the mayor said in the video. “Over the holidays, the testing centers got maxed out. But for the past two weeks, none of our testing clinics ran out of tickets. They will continue providing free PCR testing with same day results. There is no longer any need to line up early to guarantee a test.”

Fortunately, it seems COVID cases are on the decline.

“We are beginning to see a steady decline in cases, though our case count remains elevated,” said Kaua‘i Deputy District Health Officer Lauren Guest. “Over the past week, Kaua‘i averaged 158 cases a day. That’s down from the peak on Jan. 22, when the seven-day average topped 288 cases per day.”

To watch the full video briefing, click here.