Eight new cases of the novel coronavirus were confirmed Wednesday at the Anchorage Pioneer Home.
There are now 12 people with COVID-19 at the facility, including 10 seniors and two staff members, according to the state health department.
A Fairbanks woman in her 70s with underlying circumstances was the 27th Alaskan whose death was linked to COVID-19, while the state reported 68 new cases. A state health official notes that cases appear to be on a ‘declining trajectory’, after weeks of high-profile counts.
The eight new cases at the Anchorage Pioneer Home involved seven residents and one staff member, according to a written release from the department on Wednesday.
Last week, the state announced that three residents and one staff member were testing positive for the virus; the first resident cases reported at the Alaska Pioneer Homes. All occupants and staff at the home were tested after the first case was found, the department said.
The cases last week were discovered among residents living in one “neighborhood” near the Anchorage home.
Six of the new cases Wednesday are among people living in the same area, while one case is in a resident of a separate area, according to the release.
No residents were hospitalized Wednesday afternoon and anyone who tested positive was in isolation at the home “and will have as many dedicated staff as possible,” the statement said.
It was not immediately clear how many of the infected residents and staff had symptoms.
“Since the initial COVID-19 case was discovered in the Anchorage Pioneer Home, staff and leadership have responded with increased testing and other infection control measures to quickly detect and respond to any other possible cases within the home,” said Dr. Anne Zink, the state’s chief medical officer said Wednesday in a written statement.
“It always worries us when this virus makes its way into our vulnerable populations, which is why I take the swift and responsive actions at home to ensure that all affected residents and staff receive the proper care and control,” she said. .
Nationwide, nursing homes and nursing homes have been hit particularly hard by COVID-19.
Since March in Alaska, some residents and staff at other health care facilities have tested positive statewide, including an outbreak at the Providence Transitional Care Center in Anchorage, where two residents died.
Positive test personnel were isolated at home Wednesday, and the facility goes through “daily sanitation of all living quarters in the home and all common areas, including door knobs, handrails, dining rooms, workrooms, restrooms and breakfasts,” according to the release.
Staff and residents at the Anchorage Pioneer Home will continue weekly testing for COVID-19, the state said.
Pioneer Homes, Alaska’s state-sponsored elderly care facility, operates at six locations: Sitka, Ketchikan, Juneau, Fairbanks, Anchorage and Palmer.
The six sites were closed to visitors in March to prevent an outbreak.
In June, an employee at the Fairbanks Pioneer Home tested positive for the virus.
Some of the facilities were reopened in mid-July for limited family visits, after extensive tests revealed no positive cases in any of the homes, according to the state.
But the Anchorage Pioneer Home – which has a total of 141 residents and 168 staff members – has been closed to visitors since March 17, due to continued high rates of community transmission in Anchorage.
The 27th Alaskan to die from the new coronavirus was reported Wednesday, as 68 new cases were announced statewide in multiple communities.
The person who died was a Fairbanks woman in her 70s with underlying conditions, according to a release from the state health department.
By status
7-day averages
Positivity rates
In recent days, daily case counts have been lower than in July, when cases among both residents and non-residents increased rapidly and several major outbreaks in the seafood sector impressed daily case counts even higher.
“We really seem to be on a downward trajectory, and that’s good news,” state epidemiologist Dr. Joe McLaughlin said Wednesday during a video-and-response session.
Lower counts of daily cases in Anchorage have driven the recent decline of the state, he said, and likely show that recent measures that have put the city in place are working.
There were 31 people hospitalized Wednesday with confirmed cases of COVID-19 statewide, while another eight people were examined for the disease, state data showed.
Of the 68 new cases, the state reported 44 new cases in Anchorage and one new case in Wasilla. There were also two cases in Sterling and one in one from a smaller town in the northern Kenai Peninsula Borough. There were also six cases in the Valdez-Cordova Census Area.
Two resident cases as well as one non-resident case were reported for Juneau, while Fairbanks saw six new resident cases.
State data also show one case each reported in Metlakatla, Sitka, a smaller community in the Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area and in a non-resident of the combined Yakutat and Hoonah-Angoon regions.
