Alaska has another record-breaking day for COVID-19 cases reported in the data update on Wednesday. The state Department of Health and Social Services reported 4,519 cases, 5 additional deaths and 81 hospitalizations. The five Alaskans who died were a female resident of Anchorage in her 70s, a male resident of Anchorage in his 70s, a male resident of Anchorage in his 60s, a male resident of Anchorage in his 60s, and a male resident of Anchorage in his 50s. There are currently 81 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and six additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 87 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Eight of these patients are on ventilators.
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 1,522.3. For boroughs and census areas: 28 areas are at the high alert level.
Dr. Anne Zink spoke on the coronavirus cases increasing in the COVID Science ECHO Wednesday:
“Now here’s Alaska cases, so continuing to see an uptick in cases when we look at the seven-day average. We will be announcing over 2,000 cases today. Again, another record-breaking day for cases. Overall, again, fantastic that it is causing less severe diseases, but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t still feeling pretty darn miserable with it and being out for quite some time. Those who are most vulnerable can still very much still be impacted by this variant. So, we’re seeing a pretty steep increase right here in the state of Alaska. Again, breaking down, looking at our cases, here, you can see this current surge really climbing up here quickly. Here’s our hospitalizations, as you can see, after that delta surge, we’ve come down, but unfortunately, we are starting to see an uptick here again in hospitalizations with currently 7.7% of the people hospitalized are because of COVID at this time. We’re working closely with the hospitals. They’re mostly impacted by staff being out, being sick right now, working with contractors and making sure they have the staff and resources they need.”
Protective measures against the Omicron variant remain the same as for the other COVID variants. Layering protective measures, including masking, handwashing, physical distancing, and testing help to reduce the transmission of coronavirus. In addition, the DHSS says to use a self-test before and after travel and large gatherings.
