Hawaii health care workers decry lack of COVID mandates

HONOLULU (AP) — Health care workers in Hawaii say a lack of government action is worsening an already crippling surge of coronavirus cases in the islands, and without effective policy changes the state’s limited hospitals could face a grim crisis.

“Soon we’re going to be in a situation where we’re going to ration health care,” said Dr. Jonathan Dworkin, an infectious diseases specialist in Hawaii.

Dworkin said that while mandates may be unpopular, rationing Hawaii's limited health care resources is “going to be far more ugly.”

“It involves making decisions about who lives and dies,” he said. “I hate the idea of having to make a decision about who’s going to get oxygen.”

Dworkin said another stay-at-home order may be needed.

“I don’t like the idea of doing that, but we’re in a situation where the hospitals are very strained, where care for non-COVID patients is becoming very difficult, where we’re in danger of running out of oxygen.”

Doctors across the state have made recommendations that they say could help Hawaii curb the spread of the delta variant.

They say the state has failed to implement a variety of measures officials agreed to last year, including ramping up rapid testing, installing better air filtration systems in schools and businesses and improving contact tracing.

Some believe a more robust screening process for travelers that includes two tests, one before travel and another after arrival, could also help slow the spread of disease.

“For an island state not to take border control seriously is, in my mind, an epidemiological crime,” Dworkin added. However, “the best impact for strict border control would have been a few months ago.”

Before July, Hawaii reported a seven-day average of 46 daily cases. On...