Mayor Rick Blangiardi is ‘dead against’ putting the city’s reopening plan back to level 2, as the number of new cases in Honolulu continues to approach the designated limit of a two-week average of 50 new cases per day.
The city’s current weekly average is 59 new cases per day. According to the tiger system, if the weekly average of new cases exceeds 50 more than two weeks, Honolulu should move back to Level 2, which allows meetings of up to five people as opposed to 10, and limits gyms to 25% of 50% allowed in Level 3. .
According to the numbers, Honolulu is expected to reach the threshold it will bring back to Tier 2 on Wednesday. To keep Oahu below the weekly average of 50 cases per day, it must have less than ten new cases per day for the next two days.
However, Blangiardi explained during a press conference today that when the level system was created under Mayor Kirk Caldwell, it was designed with the assumption that vaccines would only be available until the summer or fall of 2021. Instead, the state had about 675,000 doses vaccine administered.
“I think our case counts when it was determined, to a very different extent in the construction of the levels,” he said.
‘The number of levels when it was previously built could have been too low. I asked for changes to Tier 3, if it should be 50 to 100 cases, I think we can stay within the range of the positivity rate (2.5%). ”
Blangiardi spoke to government David Ige about staying with Tier 3, but it is unclear how the decision will be made.
Ige said today on the Spotlight Hawaii of Honolulu that it is largely left to Blangiardi to decide whether Honolulu will return to Tier 2.
Later, at a press conference, however, he pointed to Oahu’s emergency order which said the city would result in action by the number of cases. The order states that Oahu will remain in Tier 3 until May 10, 2021, “unless an earlier level is required to be moved through Honolulu’s COVID-19 reopening framework with an order affecting the movement,” or it is replaced with another order. Ige explained that the city may choose to ignore the current city order, but that it should rather change the level system to give the city more time to explore its options.
“It may be necessary to change his order so that it is not automatic,” he said.
“At the moment, the order is written in such a way that the action on Wednesday, based on the number of consecutive Wednesdays, would be necessary.”
If Blangiardi wants to change the level system, he has to submit a request to the governors’ office, and Ige has to approve it.
One of Ige’s biggest concerns is the increase in cases that could mean more contagious variants of COVID-19 being spread.
“What is often missed is that with this increasing number of cases, it offers more opportunities for variation,” Ige said.
Blangiardi agreed that he could not argue against the risk of variants, but said it was still ‘speculative’ and reminded people that he was not an epidemiologist.
He encouraged people to continue to adhere to the Tier 3 rules, wear masks and wear distance.