DHSS today announced 50 new people with COVID-19 in Alaska. 45 are residents in 16 communities: Anchorage (22), Juneau (3), Sterling (3), Palmer (2), Seward (2), Soldotna (2), Wasilla (2), and one each Bethel Census Area, Chugiak, Dillingham, Fairbanks, Homer, Kusilvak Census Area, Northwest Arctic Borough, Utqiaġvik and Yakutat Borough/Hoonah-Angoon Census Area.
Five new nonresidents were also identified in:
- City & Borough of Juneau: 1 visitor in Juneau
- Municipality of Anchorage: 1 visitor in Anchorage
- North Slope Borough: 1 under investigation
- Location under investigation: 2 in mining
Two resident cases from August 6 (Kenai and Anchorage), not previously counted, have been added and one duplicate resident case has been removed. One nonresident case has been removed after it was determined the person had already been reported as a case from another state and had met CDC isolation criteria prior to traveling. This brings the total number of Alaska resident cases to 3,821 and the total number of nonresident cases to 768.
Of the 45 Alaska residents, 16 are male and 29 are female. Three are under the age of 10; three are aged 10-19; seven are aged 20-29; nine are aged 30-39; eight are aged 40-49; four are aged 50-59; seven are aged 60-69 and four are aged 70-79.
There have been a total of 161 hospitalizations and 26 deaths with seven new hospitalizations and no new deaths reported yesterday. There are currently 31 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and an additional nine patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 40 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Individuals who no longer require isolation (recovered cases) total 1,165.
A total of 290,744 tests have been conducted. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.36%.
ADDITIONAL TESTING DATA CHANGES made to the data hub as of August 11:
- Testing data from all laboratories now use the ordering provider’s physical location for the geographic location. Previously, for commercial and hospital/facility laboratories, the city the patient lived in was used; Alaska State Public Health Laboratories are already using the ordering provider location for their data. This transition provides a more complete and accurate location of how much testing is happening in specific geographic locations, and results in fewer tests being attributed to out-of-state (nonresident), other or unknown categories. Due to the changes in data source, testing counts by date collected, date completed, lab type, result and geographic location may change and can’t be compared to testing data reported prior to August 11, 2020.
- As of August 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classifies positive results from antigen tests as probable cases of COVID-19. To align the State of Alaska case counting with the CDC’s case definition, the Section of Epidemiology will now count those positive antigen tests as cases and antigen tests will be included in the total testing count.
- Public health reporting practices encourage reporting of testing from both providers and laboratories, but this can lead to duplicate records for the same testing instance (same person, same specimen, same day, same visit). New data processing steps have been implemented to eliminate these identical reports being included on the testing dashboard.
This report reflects data from 12 a.m. until 11:59 p.m. on August 10 that posted at noon today on the Alaska Coronavirus Response Hub. There is a lag between cases being reported on the DHSS data dashboard and what local communities report as details are confirmed and documentation is received. Reporting of new hospitalizations also lag, while the current number of hospitalized patients represents more real-time data.
