Tracking COVID-19 in Alaska: State reports deaths of 4 Anchorage residents and 37 new cases statewide

The deaths of four Anchorage residents with COVID-19 were reported by the state health department Tuesday, marking the most fatalities recorded in a single day since the virus was first detected in Alaska in March.

Two of the deaths — involving a man in his 70s and a woman in her 60s — occurred recently, but “two are individuals who died earlier and were recorded from routine reviewing of death certificates,” the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services said on Facebook. The earlier deaths involve a man in his 80s who died in mid-July and a woman in her 80s who died in early August, according to the state health department.

In total, 36 Alaskans with the virus have died since the start of the pandemic.

Alaska also reported 37 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday involving 34 residents and three non-Alaskans.

Active COVID-19 infections among Alaska residents declined from 3,104 on Monday, to 3,028 in Tuesday’s report, according to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services COVID-19 dashboard. (Friday marked the first drop in active resident cases in several weeks, with another decline seen Monday.) The number of active nonresident cases increased just slightly from 631 on Monday to 635 on Tuesday.

In total, 4,843 Alaska residents and 823 nonresidents have tested positive for COVID-19 since March.

There were 40 people hospitalized with COVID-19 and six other hospital patients awaiting test results by Tuesday, state data showed. Alaska has 153 intensive care unit beds, which are used for the state’s sickest patients, and state data showed that 82 were in use statewide as of Tuesday.

Fifteen of the new cases reported Tuesday involved Anchorage residents, plus one in Eagle River.

The state reported another 18 cases among residents from elsewhere in Alaska: four in Wasilla, one in Palmer, one in Kenai, one in Soldotna, four in Fairbanks, three in Utqiagvik, one in Juneau and one in Ketchikan. Among smaller communities in the state, there was a resident case in the Northwest Arctic Borough and one in the Nome Census Area.

The state also reported three nonresident cases, including one in Unalaska, one in Ketchikan and one in a smaller community in the Nome Census Area.

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

The state’s testing positivity rate reported Tuesday was 1.74% over a seven-day rolling average. There have been 333,831 tests performed in Alaska, which can include multiple tests on one person.

-- Annie Berman

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