Alaska is reporting nearly 450 new coronavirus cases in the data update Thursday. The case count includes 442 resident cases and 3 nonresident cases totaling 445 new cases. In addition, there have been nine new resident hospitalizations and no Alaska resident deaths were reported. Across the Kenai Peninsula, Soldotna reports 8 new cases, Kenai 4, Kenai Peninsula Borough North 2, Kenai Peninsula Borough South 1, and Sterling 1.
There are currently 139 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and three additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 142 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Eighteen of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 11.7%.
Dr. Anne Zink says that COVID-19 cases are going down:
“So we continue to have a lot of cases in the state, but we are coming down and, unfortunately, other places are coming up. You can see, we are no longer the number one state in the nation with number of cases. Nationally they’re ranking us a 34% decrease. There’s a couple of different reasons why this is calculated slightly differently, you can see hospitalizations and deaths. Hoping to continue to see that in a downward projection, although we still have quite a few cases.”
The current statewide alert level – based on the reported number of cases per 100,000 people over the past 7 days – is high (red) at 399.6. For boroughs and census areas: 24 areas are at the high alert level.
60% of Alaskans aged 5 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose. 55% of Alaskans aged 5 and older have been fully vaccinated. 46% of the Kenai Peninsula Region are fully vaccinated.
