Nearly half a dozen more Alaskans are dead after contracting COVID-19. The state Department of Health and Social Services reported five new coronavirus deaths yesterday, raising Alaska’s death toll from the pandemic to 390 residents and eight nonresidents. The latest residents to die are an Anchorage man in his 80s, an Anchorage woman in her 70s, a Fairbanks woman in her 80s, a Mat-Su woman in her 70s and a Palmer man in his 70s.
The health department also reported 382 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday, including 351 resident cases. Homer had the most cases across the state with 82 new cases. Across the rest of the Kenai Peninsula, Kenai reported 16, Anchor Point 14, Soldotna 10, Kenai Peninsula Borough south 4, Seward 3, Kenai Peninsula Borough North 2, and Sterling 2. 31 nonresident cases were reported in Alaska, including 8 in Homer, 1 in Kenai, 1 in Kenai Peninsula Borough South and 1 in Soldotna.
Note: The high number of cases in Homer reflects recent cases that have been added to the data hub after a test result processing delay was identified and resolved. There was no delay in communicating the test results to the individuals who tested positive.
Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Anne Zink said:
“Here’s where we’re at in the United States as well as Alaska. So you can see that we’re following a similar trend with a quick uptick in cases here more recently predominantly because the delta variant as well as the fact that we have less nonpharmaceutical mitigation efforts in place. We are gathering in different ways. Less masks. More people being together. So we see COVID spreading quite quickly around the state overall. We also see an increase in our percent positivity. We’re at 6.16% of our tests that are coming are positive. Again, this is like flashlights on the car, it helps to know where we are going. We’d like to see that less than 5% and ideally less than 2% and you can see the regions by map. Vaccines continue to be our major offense against this virus. You are 8 times less likely to get the COVID and 25 times less likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID if you are vaccinated. Those are, kind of, some of the national statistics.”
The current statewide alert level is high and all eleven regions of the state are in high alert status. Of those eleven regions, the Kenai Peninsula Region is the second highest region in Alaska with high COVID-19 transmission.
The Kenai Peninsula Region also continues to be among the lowest regions in the state for fully vaccinated Alaskans with 44.7% who are fully vaccinated.
