State health officials said Thursday that two new cases of COVID-19 reported on Maui were associated with travel, though the latest data suggests there is “at least a low level of community circulation of the virus” on the island.

The 55 total cases reported statewide — 50 on Oahu, three on Hawaii island and two on Maui — set a record for the highest single-day count in Hawaii since the beginning of the pandemic. The previous highest one-day count was 42 cases on July 11.

“We’re going to be expecting to see spikes from time to time,” Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Anderson said during a news conference on Oahu on Thursday. “It’s occurring in many places, particularly in places where we have a relatively low prevalence of disease. . . . What would be of concern is if we continue to see higher levels continuing for an extended period of time.”

Only three of the 55 cases were confirmed to be travel related, Anderson said.

“The two cases we had on Maui were close contacts of a known positive case who had traveled to the Mainland,” he explained. “So one of the trends we’re seeing is that most of the cases on Neighbor Islands — and that’s been over the last few weeks or over even a month or so — seem to be related to travel.”

Oahu is where the department is most often seeing cases “without any evidence of travel or exposure to those who have traveled,” Anderson added.

An elderly Oahu woman became the 26th person to die from the coronavirus, the department said. Her death was reported to DOH late Wednesday. There have now been 19 deaths on Oahu, six on Maui and one out of state.

After going a little over a week without cases, Maui saw four new cases Tuesday and two Thursday. Two residents have been hospitalized for COVID-19 and another two tested positive at the Maui Memorial Medical Center Emergency Department but were well enough to be sent home to quarantine, a hospital spokeswoman said Tuesday.

State epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park said during the news conference that not all of the recent Maui cases were connected, though some were related to travel.

“I will say there have been cases on Maui, as well as Hawaii island, where they’ve traveled to Oahu,” Park said. “So we’re finding that traveling to Oahu is becoming a risk for our Neighbor Islands.”

However, it’s not just travel that’s causing cases on Maui, Park added. She explained that sentinel surveillance – when health officials look for cases that are not related to travel and could indicate community spread – pointed to a low level of community activity.

The Health Department works with community providers who send over data of patients they’ve seen in the past week for any respiratory-related illnesses. Tests are conducted and submitted to the state, which reviews results and randomly picks positive cases that have no history of travel.

“So from that we’re able to then look at results from across the state and in the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen some positives come through from Maui island, and that’s how we know there’s at least some low level of activity occurring on Maui,” Park said.

When asked where specifically the community spread was occurring, the Hawaii COVID-19 Joint Information Center said that cases are mapped on the department’s website “and that’s all the information we can provide at this time.”

According to the map, the West Maui ZIP code of 96761 has the most cases on island, with 6 to 10, while the areas of Wailuku (96793), Kahului (96732), South Maui (96753), Upcountry (96768) and Upcountry to Kaupo (96790) have one to five cases each.

The 55 new cases Thursday were among people “from all walks of life and varied professions,” Anderson said. Park noted that the “common thread is that people are letting their guard down,” sometimes not social distancing or wearing masks with friends or coworkers, attending large gatherings or assuming they’re not at risk while interacting outdoors.

Park said the state doesn’t have to take the drastic measures it took previously; residents just need to continue following the steps that helped curb the virus in the first place — keeping their distance, practicing good hygiene, staying home when sick and now, wearing masks.

As for whether schools will be able to reopen Aug. 4, Park and Anderson said it will depend on the trends of infection in the community.

“We don’t have specific numbers that we could use as triggers; however, if we continue to see a trend, as we are, toward more cases, certainly this will be a concern as we look at opening the schools,” Anderson said. “It’ll also depend on where the cases are and what types of cases we’re looking at. If this is a situation where we have widespread community transmission, unrelated cases, a situation where it seems the community as a whole is seeing unacceptable transmission, then of course that would make a difference.”

Ultimately, it will be the governor’s decision, but Anderson added that the state could possibly look at opening schools in areas with fewer cases.

In explaining why schools were still on track to reopen when it took fewer daily cases to close them back in March, Park said that health officials did not know much about the disease at the time.

“We still don’t know enough about the disease, but at that time we knew even less,” she said. “We also didn’t have the same amount of laboratory testing capacity, and our hospitals and our health care system were ill prepared at that time because we were still at the beginning of the pandemic.”

Park said that how well residents follow safety practices will also be a factor in reopening schools.

* Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.