COVID on the uptick in AK

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More cases of COVID-19 were reported in Alaska this week than any previous week, and by a lot — more than 40 percent than the previous high week earlier this month. 1,256 cases were reported, according to the state Department of Health and Social Services.

Alaska is experiencing a sharp increase in new reported cases, with most in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Region, Anchorage Municipality and Fairbanks North Star Borough. The Northwest Region continues to have the highest two-week average case rate of any region of the state and saw increases this week. 

Compared to other states’ case rates, Alaska’s average case rate per capita over the last 7 days (25.5 average daily cases over the last week per 100,000) remains at the thirteenth highest of US states, just below Wyoming (27.3) and worse off than Missouri (24.4).

Alaska still has the lowest death rates in the country, but in terms of total numbers, more have died from the China virus in Alaska than in Vermont and Wyoming. 

Alaska is the 30th highest in average daily cases, just below Wyoming. Alaska is not alone in seeing a rise in cases: Nationally, cases have been rising since mid-September, the state said, with 26 states currently seeing 7-day average case rates over 15 per 100,000 and an additional 17 states with increases in their 7-day average case rate this week. 

“An updated model epidemic curve predicts Alaska’s cases will continue to accelerate over the next week. Two weeks ago, cases were now expected to double every 105 days, with a daily projected growth rate of 0.66%. This projection has worsened, with cases now expected to double around every 20 days and a daily projected growth rate of around 3.5%,” according to DHSS.

To date, 10,323 Alaskans have contracted COVID-19, and 65 have died while affected by it. There are currently 50 Alaskans in the hospital who are infected with the coronavirus. Seven of those are on ventilators.

47 COMMENTS

  1. Do. Not. Care. Nothingburger. You might as well be telling us how many kids have chickenpox or how many people have pneumonia. If you want to post something informative about this pandemic, then look at the Great Barrington Declaration.

    • You apparently care enough to take numerous steps including reading the headline, deciding to click on the link, possibly read the article, write a comment, and submit that comment. Seems like you care more than you’d like to admit.
      .
      How many kids die from chickenpox?

    • Sir, best to voice your opinion now, as you won’t be able to speak when you have a ventilator tube stuck down your throat.

      • Whidbey:

        You really think Alaskan will be among the 0.5% of the people who test positive for the virus that end up on a ventilator? Right… sure. Likely to happen when more than 97% of the tests come back negative for the virus. Alaskan has a higher chance of ending up on a ventilator because of a car accident than the virus.

        (The data is out there, the math is easy to do.)

    • Great Barrington Declaration is a document with a big distinguished sounding name, a crisp-looking site, and literally tens of supporting scientist co-signers. TENS!!!!. You need better backup.

  2. Speaking of health issues, I want to see a chart on deafness of people who watched the Trump Townhall tonight.. They cranked the volume up on the HOST so loud (so that she could talk over Trump while he was answering her questions) that my ears are still ringing… She would ask a question and then speak 100 decibels over him while he was trying to answer.. Too bad Chris Wallace wasn’t there to shut her up… Oh Chris Wallace only does that to Trump because he is Biden supporting liberal nut-job.

  3. More and more of us are just over all the hype and getting back to normal life. Get the virus, recover, get on with normal life.

  4. Nope don’t care one bit about this plandemic anymore. The virus may by real, but the reaction to this is absolutely ridiculous. All this told me is now we are going to have yet more runs on things at the store out of panic that is unnecessary…

  5. High case count is good, provided mortality is low, that just means we’re finally on track for herd immunity. Hospitalization rate is the only number people should be worried about, and coincidentally it’s the one the msm won’t report. If you’re over 50 or are immune compromised, please take precautions. Everyone else should be living normal lives.

    • You got it. They increase testing dramatically, and most are asymptomatic, to make it look like a flare up. Of course the cases are out there, many more than they are reporting. But do they do a real scientific random sample ? NO. They say increase testing, do contact tracing, and isolate ! All bad ! Stop the mass testing. Contact tracing is useless at this point (actually long ago) and forget the lockdowns to quell the virus… How about getting hyrdoxychloroquine out to prevent and cure ? There is also Ivermectin. It is really a shame to see Must Read falling for this hoax of pseudo-science. Herd immunity is reached with an infection percentage of close to 20%. (It was 17% in Sweden and they were done with the Virus in 4 months.) Stop beating up on us with pointless case numbers derived form mass testing… It’s not just senseless, it’s being used to shut down Alaska (and America).

      • OMG! “Herd Immunity” is a mathematical concept represented by an equation…a math equation. It’s not open to debate anymore than 1 + 1 = 2 is open to debate. It wouldn’t really matter if it was Covid or a hundred other diseases with Ro > 1. The number is 70%, it was 70% and will always be 70%. Your comment is total and utter NONSENSE! Someone should have told you long ago to shut the heck up! Especially on this site…you do know that Conservatives are for the most part intelligent and highly educated? (You’re the exception.) So did you really think you could spew that garbage here and not get called out for it? Also, Suzanne was just reporting the actual numbers reported by the State, so your statement regarding “Must Read falling for” something is yet another attempt to debate 1 + 1 = 2 and I think that’s rather sad. It’s these kind of insane statements which is driving people away from the Republican Party and will cost Conservatives the Presidency and probably the Senate! Knock it off!

  6. There is a huge difference between dying “FROM” a virus and dying “WITH” a virus. So far no one in the state has died “FROM” COVID….they died from complications related to other health issues. They just happen to test positive for COVID at the time and to keep the narrative going health officials list them as a COVID death. Actually, the nation wide death rate is down from last year, so what we are being told is no one is dying of anything but Corona Virus. No cancer deaths, no heart attack deaths, no auto accident deaths….just COVID-19. Check the numbers for yourself. Once you do, think on that for a moment.
    Please note…”MANDATES” do not come from health officials directly…they come from politicians! We need to stop this madness now!

  7. Obviously these folks commenting don’t live on St Lawrence island where there is currently a mandatory lockdown in Gamble and has been for a couple of weeks now it’s gotten so bad. A lot of people out there suffer from tuberculosis brought over from the Russian side since a lot of their families still live over there why don’t you show a little bit of compassion for your fellow alaskans during their time of grief and suffering? If you don’t have anything to say positive or negative, perhaps it’s best not to say anything at all.

    • What you need is a good pantless mayor. We have one in Anchorage that can fill half of that description and he can start on the 26th. I’d wager that he cares deeply and he’ll definitely give weekly jabberings about Covid.

      The cost? Everything else on Gamble will suffer.

    • I sincerely hope people do not believe this. Those who test positive have the virus and can transmit it to others. They may not have symptoms. They may be super spreaders.
      Positive test results are not 100% accurate, but are near that. They are highly reliable. Negative results are much less so. A negative test result does not necessarily mean you do not have the virus.
      Distancing is the only truly effective means of prevention.
      This is a dangerous disease and is with us to stay. If we are not cautious, it will blow up in our faces. The increase in cases is concerning and could be the beginning of another, more extensive and dangerous surge of infections.
      The time to take action is now. Delay will result in more cases and more deaths. If we don’t control it now, we may not be able to control it once exponential spread begins.
      If we get to herd immunity at about 2/3 if the population, the number of deaths at the current death rate for the remaining 1/3 (About 110 million people) would still be from 2 to 5 million, assuming everyone without immunity gets the disease .
      We’ve already lost more people than have died in all the wars since WW II. When will it be enough for us to take this seriously?

      • You couldnt be more wrong.  ar

        The bits of genetic material whose amount is being amplified ARE NOT viruses. They’re just small segments of inert genetic material found inside a virus’s shell. Without the shell, they don’t have any ability to infect a cell and reproduce. The PCR test doesn’t detect “live” viruses, at best it only detects their “remains.”The detection of viral remains involves massively amplifying the amount in the original sample by running it through successive PCR cycles. And nothing about the PCR test itself will tell you if there was actually any “live” virus in the original sample.

        The number of PCR cycles it takes to amplify a sample containing viral remains to the point where they can be detected is called its cycle threshold.The number of PCR cycles it takes to amplify a sample containing viral remains to the point where they can be detected is called its cycle threshold.most testing companies run the samples they receive through 40 cycles. Aany genetic material in them is being multiplied over a trillion times. We’re told that a few companies run samples through only 37 cycles, which is still multiplying the amount of converted viral-RNA by a factor of almost 140 billion. The “C.D.C.’s own calculations suggest that it is extremely difficult to detect any live virus in a sample above a threshold of 33 cycles.” But, this is a deceptive way of stating what the CDC’s data shows that significantly understates how using 40 or even 37 cycles is going to result in massive amounts of positive diagnoses that ought to be negative.

        The CDC didn’t just have “extreme difficulty” finding any live virus in samples whose cycle threshold was above 33. They were straight-up unable to find any. Moreover, they were frequently unable to find any live virus even in samples with lower cycle thresholds.

      • “Those who test positive have the virus and can transmit it to others. They may not have symptoms. They may be super spreaders.”

        Actually, the latest info says that is not true. Contagion generally only happens a day or so before onset of symptoms. Those without symptoms are pretty safe.

        “We’ve already lost more people than have died in all the wars since WW II. When will it be enough for us to take this seriously?”

        Dying with the virus is different than dying FROM the virus. The average person who died with the virus had 2.6 co-morbidities. In other words, they already had one foot in the grave, and the other was on a banana peel. So… no they did not die from COVID.

        IF you were to test everyone who died in the last year for common STDs, (and applied the same logic) you would find out that most people obviously died from fooling around.

      • The time to take action is now. End the mandates and return to normal. Stop this damn testing and treat people who are sick with known COVID cures. Herd Immunity is reached at about 20%. Your numbers are all off, all of ’em. Your approach is wrong, completely. Go back to March when we didn’t know anything. Now we do. Your day is done.

  8. Just a few questions… how many more tests are being done now than a month or so ago? How many Alaskans have recovered from the virus? It’s curious that right before the election they are still trying scare tactics to control us and turn us against voting for Trump. I’m not scared and I’m not staying home hiding! Let’s get our lives back and support recovery for our local businesses!!

  9. I’m 56 with asthma and I tested positive back in May. Problems? I had hot/cold flashes for an afternoon. Drank lots of water, rested, got lots of sleep. Next day, back out landscaping my yard and moving large rocks by hand. Enough of this and the idiotic masks. Let us live our normal lives.

  10. Realize there is a difference between testing positive for the virus, and getting sick.

    The overwhelming majority of people who test positive have little to no symptoms. Very few require more than an office visit. There is zero chance of the healthcare system being overwhelmed unless a much higher percentage of infected people end up in the hospital.

  11. We only have this “3rd wave” because we did not stand up to the first one. Locking people away is clearly prolonging a disease process that should have run its course by July at the latest. This freaked-out reaction is obviously allowing this thing to linger.
    Is this the future of this city, this state? Close down every time the numbers go up? What about the next little germ that comes along? Where does it end? We knew, we eventually had to face this. It’s time to get back to life.

    • Not if Biden wins. He’s going to lock you down, tax the hell out of you and force you to wear masks or he’s going to show up in a big black car and give you a hell of a spanking.

      • That’s right! All of us that earn more than $400,000 a year are in for some real pain. We might have to stop running up the national debt. One of the greatest tricks the GOP ever pulled off was to convince us normal folk that our fortunes are tied to the rich and wealthy — that if the government taxes the rich they’ll stop running businesses and us poor folks won’t have jobs. Which is total BS. You could increase US taxes a lot and they’re still more competitive than most other countries with stable business-friendly economies. Further, they tied taxes to other freedoms with arguments like “first they’ll come for your money, then your guns,” when really all they came for was an equal percentage of tax payments from the rich as they ALREADY get from the poor. So, yeah, Uncle Biden is coming for you Greg.

  12. With everyone eager to post a ‘positive’ test (a common cold tests positive) as a “case”, no wonder the “infection” is ramping up. How about reporting how many “cases” require hospitalization or even doctors’ care? 2.8% of the population will likely test ‘positive’ for wuhan v and about .6% of them require hospitalizing. Of that number, less than 25% require critical care and a much smaller number actually succumb to wuhan v. 98+% of ‘positives’ never have any symptoms or require any treatment. 99.8% of ‘wuhan’ fatalities have other life threatening issues that would claim them even without wuhan v. The leftist scam depends on scaring citizens into submitting to control by politicians. Don’t fall for it any longer. It is all geared toward fouling the election.

    • Well said Ben. This constant updating on ” new cases” nonsense is so obvious, a child can see what is going on.

  13. I predict the overall count will always go up…

    The number per 100,000 will go up as the number of test per 100,000 goes up.

    What is the % of the population that has it at any given time doing? Is it going up, down or flat?

  14. Here is a look at the liklihood of Virus activity. Different time for different locations, what is happening now was predicted and is not abnormal.
    youtube.com/watch?v=ZpF7EIkgiZY

    Here are some of the challenges of using PCR test.
    cebm.net/covid-19/infectious-positive-pcr-test-result-covid-19/

  15. You “don’t care” people are missing the point! On Sept. 23 a friend of mine had a stroke and was medevaced to Fairbanks. However, Fairbanks had no ICU beds available and it took four hours to transfer him to Anchorage. No “golden hour” for him, and of course he died. As I write this, the official State Covid site shows Fairbanks presently has 5 ICU beds available, which isn’t considered a problem. However, there are only 6 regular hospital beds, which is a problem, as evidenced by the graph turning red! Covid didn’t kill my friend, but you “I don’t care” people probably contributed to his death!!! I can’t help thinking that if you broke your leg and had to wait an extra four hours, in pain, that you’d be the loudest whiners!

    • Dear Sir
      My sincere condolences on the death of your friend. Unfortunately the “golden hour” starts at the on-set of symptoms, not when you arrive at the hospital. So with the greatest respect, I would like to point out that the time it took to transport him to Fairbanks probably considerably cut into that time.
      Fairbanks is a smaller facility and at any given time there may not be an ICU bed available. I understand that your are in pain and wish to blame this disease for the circumstances that led to the death of your friend, but the realities of this virus have proven that the very vast majority of individuals will not even be aware that they have had it.
      We can not wish it away. Closing everything down didn’t make it go away either, or even slow it down. So really our only option is to let it run its course and work on better medications to blunt its force, like we have done with every other disease we have encountered in human history.

    • I am very sorry to hear about your friend. A shortage of medical care facilities is tragic, regardless of the reason.

      However, blaming COVID is not necessarily appropriate. Are the people currently using the ICU and hospital beds all there because of COVID? (I doubt it, given the numbers for the State overall.) If they are full for other reasons, you friend might have died anyway.

      Transferring the issue (“if you had a broken leg and had to wait four hours for treatment…”) is not helpful in any way. In fact, it detracts from your overall point.

      And, blaming me for contributing to your friends death is just plain wrong.

  16. Don’t care. It’s perfectly clear now that it is more about politics , fanning fear and having more control than it is about our health. No question in my mind at all.

    I fear God only. Faith & Fear do not co-exist. Pick one ! Not both….

    People die “with symptons”, not simply from” Covid ” but most have been wrongfully classified as a C19 death. Of course, that is being censored all over the globe.

    Doctors from from our country have been censored and silenced on this fact, as with doctors from Europe who will tell you.

    Life goes on.

  17. These hourly and daily numbers plastered on the news is one of the biggest crimes against humanity, especially with all the facts we now have on Covid. Especially with kids and subjecting our children with continued laptop learning instead of being in a classroom. My son (as with many kids) are suffering from laptop distance learning and I have to decide to pull him from ASD and home school him . K-2nd grade may go back soon, but older kids have to suffer more. All because these daily “new cases” are plastered on the news constantly promoting nothing but irrational and unnecessary fear.

    We have lost our critical thinking skills as a society.

  18. Please dont exclude my most recent post again. You never posted my reasonable post from last night ?
    That is what Ch 2 and Ch 11 used to do. Dont become like them.
    My post from yesterday was reasonable without offensive, insulting content. My posts are reasonable and don’t deserve deleting. Some do, but my posts are factual, responsible and reasonable.

  19. Am in the “DO NOT CARE” camp. City, State & Federal bureaucrats will tweak the numbers/statistics. They will syphon the maximum amount of “special funding” tax dollars regardless of the real need. I glazed over the chart but enjoyed reading the comments, right on “MQ”!

  20. “The lockdown implemented in New Zealand was remarkable for its stringency and its brevity…:” Now their economy is almost totally reopened. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30237-1/fulltext

    “Countries that locked down early and/or used extensive test and tracing—including Denmark, Finland, Norway, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam and New Zealand—saved lives and limited damage to their economies. ” I would like to limit the damage to our economy and save lives.

    We have extensive knowledge and public health responses that could have mitigated this disaster. I recommend “The Great Influenza” about the 1918-19 Spanish Flu (fun fact, it initially emerged in Kansas). It goes into the past Hx of pandemics and factors that enabled that pandemic and the development of the health system that emerged afterwards. We have really been spoiled by a robust vaccination system that has avoided this kind of thing during the last 100 years. Pre-vaccines, throughout history lock downs for measles, small pox and TB used to happen every few years like clock work.

    Our insistence on our personal comfort and convenience over what is good for our country is astounding. Ooops, I forgot, as our leader said publicly the virus is a hoax. In private he said it was going to be a big deal.

  21. Whilst I do “care” about all of this, what folks might want to reflect upon is that with the exception of locking people in sealed rooms the number of cases will continue to rise. And, short of the draconian steps, there isn’t much the hot-shot medical people can do about it. (And, on that point, perhaps the medical people need to drop the air of superiority and learn some humility). Covid will basically infect everyone, perhaps over and over again. It is not a matter of “if,” it is only a matter of “when.”. I am pessimistic that a long-lasting vaccine will ever be developed.

  22. Suzanne is trying to help you all by gently acknowledging the very real danger this virus presents.

    The election is going to be over soon and the virus will still be with us. When it is, I hope you’ll consider taking it seriously.

  23. Looking at that graph….

    First of all, why is the projection starting in the middle of September when there is a measurable amount of data available from mid July?
    Next, why are the case counts starting in mid July, instead of March when the first known case was ID’d in AK?
    It almost looks like the person constructing this graph wanted to make it look as horrific as possible.

    Now, I am not a statistician, but even I can tell that if you were to plot a projection using a proper sized sample set, let’s say eight months worth of data (currently available), the actual projection of future cases would be closer to a flat line.

    You would not base business decisions on a single day’s sales, nor should you base sweeping government policy on a single weeks of data. Yet… here we are.

  24. What real danger Suzanne? Do you know anyone in the hospital or anyone who had died with COVID (COVID only, no other underlying conditions)? This is all very politically motivated with Liberal politicians drunk on power. I now hear they want to cancel Thanksgiving. So sad.

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