Alaska’s COVID-19 coronavirus case count rose by 15 since the last Department of Health and Social Services report, which was released midday on Saturday.
The current number of Alaskans known to have contracted the Wuhan coronavirus is 272.
There were no new deaths reported; the number of Alaskans who have died from complications associated with the coronavirus is 8.
Thirty-one Alaskans have been hospitalized since the COVID-19 outbreak, although not all of those people are currently in the hospital; eight died, and many have been released.
Meanwhile, hospitals across the state are nearly empty, as other serious and not-as-serious medical conditions are not being treated in order to make beds available for COVID-19 patients.
An illustration of the empty-bed syndrome is Bartlett Memorial Hospital in Juneau, where the city-owned facility is losing $250,000 a day due to not being able to admit non-COVID patients. Nurses across the state are reporting they have been laid off due to lack of regular patients.
To date, 8,038 Alaskans have been tested for COVID-19. With 272 Alaskans showing positive for the coronavirus, the infection rate is 3.3 percent of those tested, and .037 percent of the 730,000 population.
The community breakdown for all known cases in Alaska to date:
- Anchorage: 127
- Kenai Peninsula: 15
- Ketchikan: 1
- Fairbanks/North Star Borough: 79
- Southeast Fairbanks Census Area: 1
- Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area: 1
- Mat-Su Borough: 14
- Juneau: 16
- Ketchikan: 15
- Petersburg: 2
- Craig: 1
- Bethel: 1
Globally, 1,833,685 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed, and 113,295 deaths are attributed to the virus and its effects. While the United States has the most cases of COVID of any nation, it also has a low death rate compared to many countries.
China, where the virus is believed to have originated, reports 83,014 cases, and yet reports just 3,343 deaths.
In the United States, 526,396 cases are reported, and 20,463 deaths have been attributed to the disease, although some criticize the reporting standards being used as possibly over-inclusive.
