Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) today announced no new cases COVID-19. There were also no new hospitalizations and no new deaths.
This reflects data from 12:00 a.m. until 11:59 p.m. on April 24 that posted at noon today on the DHSS Coronavirus Response AK COVID-19 Cases and Testing Dashboard.
The last day with no positive COVID-19 cases in Alaska was March 15, 2020. The first case in the state was reported in an out-of-state resident on March 12, 2020.
“This is definitely a moment to celebrate but it doesn’t mean we can let our guard down,” said Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink. “As restrictions ease in Alaska, we’re counting on Alaskans to keep taking measures to prevent COVID-19 from spreading in our communities. Today, unfortunately, we learned that Sitka has its first positive case which will be included in tomorrow’s count. Overall, however, Alaska’s case counts are continuing to trend down while testing is increasing. This is positive news, thanks to the hard work and sacrifices made by Alaskans.”
Another item of note today is an increase in the cumulative test numbers shown on the data dashboard. This data anomaly does not indicate that a substantial increase in testing has occurred within the past day. Through data quality auditing, DHSS data analysts discovered data from the Alaska State Public Health Laboratory that had been initially included in the testing data but had later been removed. These missing data were also absent from any of the geographic-specific testing displays, including the map of percent coverage and the daily graphs of testing by area. This data discrepancy has now been corrected. The omission never impacted the DHSS response to positive test results as each positive result was still reported to the Section of Epidemiology, tracked and followed through recovery, with close contacts also notified and tracked.