Tracking COVID-19 in Alaska: 92 new cases reported Saturday

Alaska reported 92 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday as active cases among residents hovered around the same level from the previous day.

Between Thursday and Saturday, officials reported the deaths of two Alaskans with COVID-19: One was a resident of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta whose death was reported by the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. on Thursday, and the other was a North Pole man in his 80s whose death was announced by the state Friday.

So far, 31 Alaskans with the virus have died since the start of the pandemic.

Active COVID-19 infections among Alaska residents ticked up marginally from 3,142 on Friday to 3,145 on Saturday, according to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard. Friday’s number reflected the first drop in active resident cases in several weeks. Another 632 nonresident cases are also considered active.

In total, 4,677 Alaska residents and 817 nonresidents have tested positive for COVID-19 since March.

There were 41 people hospitalized with COVID-19 and five others awaiting test results by Saturday, state data showed. Alaska has 153 intensive care unit beds, which are used for the state’s sickest patients, and state data showed that 85 were in use statewide by the weekend.

While hospitalizations for COVID-19 have not overwhelmed the state’s health care capacity, they are still going up as are deaths from the illness, the state’s health department said this week.

The state is also seeing a “rapid increase” in new cases of COVID-19 among Alaska residents, the department said in a summary report on cases that occurred between Aug. 9 and 15.

New cases reported by the state on Saturday included 41 cases in Anchorage (including two nonresidents) and three in Eagle River.

The state reported another 48 cases among residents from elsewhere in Alaska: 10 in Wasilla, one in Big Lake, two in Palmer, five in Kenai, three in Soldotna, one in Homer, 11 in Fairbanks, one in North Pole, one in Utqiagvik, one in Kotzebue, two in Juneau, two in Ketchikan, one in Wrangell and one in Bethel. Among smaller communities in the state, there were two resident cases in the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area and four in the Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area.

Of the new cases reported, it wasn’t clear how many were showing symptoms of the virus when they tested positive.

The state’s testing positivity rate reported Saturday was 1.86% over a seven-day rolling average.

— Morgan Krakow