Unique pattern of COVID-19 infection in the State of Hawai‘i

This is a brief report on an unusual observation regarding COVID-19 cases. The State of Hawaii is one of the most remote of the Pacific islands and the population is approximately 1.4 million. The racial and ethnic diversity is very high. For example, white Caucasians comprise ∼25%, Asians including...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: F. DeWolfe Miller, Sumner La Croix, Tim Brown, L. Thomas Ramsey, David Morens
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2021-02-01
Series:International Journal of Infectious Diseases
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220325170
Description
Summary:This is a brief report on an unusual observation regarding COVID-19 cases. The State of Hawaii is one of the most remote of the Pacific islands and the population is approximately 1.4 million. The racial and ethnic diversity is very high. For example, white Caucasians comprise ∼25%, Asians including Japanese, Chinese, and other Asians account for ∼30%, Hawaiians for 20%, and Pacific Islanders mostly from Micronesia and Samoa comprise ∼4%. We discovered that the COVID-19 rate in the latter group was up to 10 times that in all of the other groups combined and they accounted for almost 30% of cases. Moreover, we are unaware of COVID-19 transmission from Pacific Islanders to islanders with other ethnicities. Thus, there is an epidemic within the epidemic in Hawai‘i.
ISSN:1201-9712