Third Maui COVID-19 patient dies

Health officials start probe to see if death is related to cluster

State health officials are investigating if Maui’s latest COVID-19 death “is any way connected” to Maui Memorial Medical Center’s cluster of now 19 employees who have tested positive for the virus since mid-March.

“It is possible there was some association there,” Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Anderson said in a news conference Friday. “The outbreak in Maui Memorial was relatively limited to two wards as far as we know, and we’re continuing to look into whether patients or staff there were affected.”

The patient who died Tuesday was an elderly man who was in a chronic care unit, according to the state and hospital officials.

Maui Health, operators of Maui Memorial Medical Center, announced the death Friday, bringing the Maui toll to three and the statewide total to eight, as one more death was reported on Oahu on Friday. Anderson said the older adult woman was a medically fragile resident of Honolulu.

Maui Health confirmed late Friday afternoon that four more employees and one patient have tested positive for COVID-19 since it was announced Wednesday that a cluster of 15 employees had tested positive for the virus. Earlier Friday, the hospital said that there were four new cases involving three employees and one patient but later said the number had changed after the news release was sent out.

In a news release Friday afternoon, the hospital said it had tested 126 patients, caregivers and physicians this week, and that results for 24 had come back while 63 were still pending. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about the discrepancy in numbers.

During the governor’s news conference on Oahu, Anderson said that the two wards at Maui Memorial that have had the most employee infections to date are the pediatric telemetry ward and skilled nursing facility. He said the skilled nursing facility is a concern as it would typically hold “older individuals” who are “most at risk.”

Lt. Gov. Josh Green had reportedly told the Senate Special Committee on COVID-19 that eight workers were in the oncology ward, though the hospital did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.

The news from the hospital comes as the state reported nine new cases in Maui County on Friday, matching the county’s largest single-day jump. There were also nine new cases on Oahu, three on Hawaii island and one in Kauai County, as well as one case with a location pending. Currently there are 66 cases in Maui County, 343 in Honolulu County, 31 in Hawaii County and 19 in Kauai County. Two residents have been diagnosed out of state and the residences of four remain unknown.

There are no new cases on Molokai, whose total remains at two, and zero cases reported on Lanai.

Anderson said Friday that no test results have come back yet from private laboratories that handled tests administered to Molokai’s Friendly Market Center employees, after two workers tested positive last week.

When asked about other clusters in Maui County outside of the hospital, Anderson said that clusters can range in definition, including several cases from the same family.

“There’s one church group I believe where there’s an investigation

ongoing where everyone came together and there is some evidence that there’s common sources of infection there,” Anderson said.

When asked to clarify whether that was specifically a church on Maui, Anderson said he didn’t know the details but that “I do recall seeing there was an investigation of a cluster of churchgoers ongoing.”

Because of the cluster at Maui Memorial and the close relationship of admitting patients directly from the hospital, Hale Makua CEO Wesley Lo said Friday that they are stopping admissions temporarily to their care facilities, which have mainly elderly clients, a high-risk group.

“To ensure safety of our existing residents, because of our fragile population, we want to make sure that we are testing for COVID before taking new admissions for the protection of our fragile population,” Lo said in an email.

Lo added that “unfortunately, testing takes a few days, so we are waiting for results of potential new admissions as well as to ensure safety of ‘new admissions’ we are testing residents in the neighborhood where new admission are ‘cohorted’ per CDC guidelines.”

Maui Health CEO Michael Rembis said Friday afternoon that staffing for now remains solid.

“We have enough employees to take care of our community,” he said at a news conference with Mayor Michael Victorino.

Rembis said there are 1,500 employees, and that they can also ask part-time workers to put in extra hours.

When asked about how the cluster could have formed, Anderson said that some of the earliest patients who tested positive at the hospital had come from places where COVID-19 was widespread.

“It is very possible that some of those cases were associated with contact with travelers,” Anderson said.

However, he added that there was at least one employee at Maui Memorial who came to work while sick “for an extended period of time” and later tested positive.

“That could’ve also been a major factor in the outbreak,” Anderson said. “We’re still looking at the factors. It isn’t certainly one situation or one sole source of infection. I think there were a number of factors contributing, and that’s what you would expect in a situation like this.”

Anderson said staff over the next several days will continue to identify the close contacts of those who have tested positive at the hospital. In this case, testing will be done for those who may be asymptomatic but who have been in close contact with those who have tested positive.

Maui Memorial Medical Center has faced criticism in the past few weeks, as prior to March 31, the hospital was not allowing workers to wear their own masks, including cloth masks, while in nonclinical settings or when not treating patients diagnosed with COVID-19.

It later reversed its policy and said that at the time it was following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

But issues also arose this week over an employee wearing his own N95 mask. He was later allowed to wear it around the hospital but would have to remove it and use a hospital mask when treating COVID19 patients, hospital officials said.

Anderson said that hospitals across the state have implemented a policy where everyone will wear masks while on the hospital grounds.

He added that four pallets of personal protective equipment also have been delivered to Maui Memorial and that the hospital is updating its workers on its policies.

There is a “learning cycle here” for all hospitals statewide when it comes to setting policies, he said.

“Maui Memorial has done a great job (that) I’ve seen in the past week or two (that) we’ve been monitoring their situation,” said Anderson, who commented earlier this week that issues over infection control protocols at Maui Memorial could’ve contributed to the outbreak.

Also at the state news conference, officials announced that a new web-based app called “Safe Travels” rolled out on Friday to allow travelers who are subject to the 14-day quarantine to fill out the information required to travel electronically, including where they are staying, prior to their trip.

Officials said if travelers do not have internet access they can still fill out the agricultural forms that are being used at the airports to provide the state information about travelers, such as where they are staying and their contact information.

The Taxation Department and Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism rolled out the system.

Once travelers get to a Hawaii airport, they will have to show proof they completed their registration and provide some form of identification. After that, they’ll be expected to check in daily during their 14-day quarantine.

For more information, visit safetravels.hawaii.gov.

Officials said the app does not currently have tracking capabilities.

■ Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.