Alaska on Thursday reported 86 new cases of COVID-19 around the state.
As of Thursday afternoon, there were 39 people in Alaska hospital with COVID-19 and four other hospital patients waiting for test results, as reflected on the state’s COVID-19 dashboard. Alaska has 153 intensive care beds that would be used for the state’s disease patients, and state data showed that 90 were in use.
There were no new deaths. A total of 37 Alaskans have died from the virus since March.
Active COVID-19 infections among Alaska residents increased from 2,959 on Wednesday to 3,019 on Thursday. The number of active cases of non-residents is now 636.
A total of 4,975 Alaska residents and 826 non-residents have tested positive for COVID-19 since March.
In a weekly report released late Wednesday night by the state, officials noted that Alaska saw an 11% increase in cases last week, despite an overall slow decline in active cases since a high end of July. It also found that 47% of the new cases identified last week were in Anchorage, and that nearly 40% were among people in their 20s and 30s.
Forty-three of the new cases reported Thursday were residents of Anchorage, with another case involving a resident of the Eagle River.
The state on Thursday reported another 40 cases among residents from elsewhere in Alaska: three in Palmer, nine in Wasilla, 16 in Fairbanks, one in Soldotna, one in the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, one in Utqiagvik, four in Juneau, one in the Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, one in Sitka, one in Wrangell, one described as “unknown” and one case in which a resident of Alaska was described as out of state.
The state also reported two non-resident cases in Anchorage.
The names of communities smaller than 1,000 people are not included to protect the privacy of residents.
Of the new cases, it was not clear how many patients showed symptoms of the virus when tested positive.
The state test rate on Thursday reported Thursday was 2.14% over a seven-day moving average. There have been 336,220 tests conducted in Alaska to date, which may include multiple tests on one person.
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