Maui County on verge of return to ‘safer at home’ order, mayor says

HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - Maui County is seeing a significant spike in COVID-19 cases, according to officials.

More than two dozen cases were reported on both Thursday and Friday, with nearly 50 more cases on Saturday and 30 more on Sunday.

If the elevated number of cases continue, Maui County Mayor Mike Victorino says he will consider putting the county back under the ‘safer at home’ order.

“I want to see what the numbers start to come out in the next three to four days,” said Maui Mayor Victorino. “Safer at home would be the next step that I would, you know, ask people, which is not as restrictive as staying at home, you still can get out for essential services and other issues and still even go to work.”

He acknowledged the order would likely result in the closure of some businesses.

“Some high-risk businesses will be asked to close. And so that will be based upon the type of exposure that they may have,” Mayor Victorino said. “Restaurants would probably have to go from dining in to take-out. Only bars might be closed until further notice.”

Some new restrictions did go into effect over the weekend, including the limiting of gatherings to no more than 5 people, both indoors and outdoors, and restricting capacity to 30 percent at bars and restaurants.

While Maui County as a whole might be seeing a large influx in cases, officials say the total number of coronavirus patients at Maui Memorial Medical Center is actually down.

As of Sunday, only 12 coronavirus patients were still hospitalized at the facility.

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