Governor Mike Dunleavy held a Tuesday press conference to update Alaskans on the state of the COVID-19 public health emergency.
In many measurable rankings, the Governor pointed out that Alaska compares favorably to other states in the nation: “Alaska remains first in testing per-capita. We still have the lowest numbers of deaths. We have the seventh lowest case-rate, even with more testing. So, Alaska’s death rate from the coronavirus is 36-per-1,000,000. We’ve, in fact, had 26 total deaths in-reality. You compare this to a state like New Jersey which was hit pretty hard. The death rate per million in New Jersey is 1,798. So, New Jersey’s rate is 1,798 compared to Alaska’s 36.”
Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Anne Zink discussed details on how numbers are being captured and provided to the public: “To be completely clear, each case is an individual person. Even if they test multiple times, positive or negative, we have a system in the background that then checks to make sure that’s all just one person. Also, many states are also putting out metrics. Some are doing total number of cases over seven days, or total number cases over 14 days, per 100,000 or per 1,000,000. Again, ours are per-day, per 100,000 people. So, you just have to make sure your units are correct when you compare to other states because there’s a lot of variability across the country.”
She said that epidemiologists are noticing a trend based on ethnicity: “We’re starting to see a trend, specifically in the Pacific Islander and Native Alaskan population, with more cases of COVID compared to the overall population. We’re also seeing a difference in hospitalization rate, particularly within the Pacific Islander, Native American, and Asian communities. Higher rates of hospitalized per-COVID patient. There are a lot of reasons for this and we’ll continue to work with local communities to do everything we can to prevent these disease outbreaks as well as hospitalizations and deaths.”
Dr. Zink also mentioned that hospitalization data shows that older Alaskans are more vulnerable, but that no single demographic is exempt to the risk.
Governor Dunleavy also discussed preparations for the influenza season: “We’ll try to get our numbers regarding the flu, as low as we possibly can. This allows capacity within our hospitals to deal with the coronavirus. If there is an effective vaccine that comes out and there is a large number of Alaskans that can get that vaccination along with a flu vaccination, we feel that there’s a real possibility that we can keep these numbers low.”
The Governor is set for things to get closer to normal in Alaska, but he said the state is committed to following changes in the virus so that Alaska can continue to manage it better than any other state in the nation.