COVID update: Three cases

By
Suzanne Downing
-
26

Three new cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed in Anchorage (2) and Willow (1). This brings the total Alaska case count to 399. 

These cases reflect data from 12a.m. until 11:59 p.m. on May 17 that posted at noon today on the Alaska Coronavirus Response Hub. 

Of the new Alaska cases, one is male and two are female. One is aged 10-19; one is aged 20-29; and one is aged 30-39. There have been a total of 43 hospitalizations and 10 deaths with no new hospitalizations or deaths reported yesterday. Recovered cases now total 345, including one new recovered case recorded yesterday.

A total of 35,611 tests have been conducted in Alaska.

Currently, there are nine persons hospitalized for treatment of COVID-19 in Alaska; only one person is on a ventilator.

26 COMMENTS

  2. The gift that keeps on giving. Wear masks people and stay apart if you can’t stay home. Think of somebody besides yourself.

    • Greg, with all due respect, the vast majority of masks are useless from what I have learned. In fact, Cowboy kerchief’s are even acceptable? I believe that the mask wearing business is more about compliance.
      It is about control and behavior modification .

      • Some are. Cowboy coverings most certainly are. I was lucky to get a supply of N95 masks early on and reuse/recycle them daily to let them UV disinfect. The sun does the job. It’s all about trying everything we can to slow the spread. There isn’t a global conspiracy to get us all to lock step to the music.

      • I believe it’s about keeping your fluids to yourself. It’s not about filtering out what other people got.

  3. The statistics are great to hear! I just wonder what would happen if people boycotted the news … Just drop it, just like how we all just dropped playing Atari one day what would happen. Imagine, no one listening to it no one buying into it. No one being afraid by what they hear and see on the news. Comments like think of somebody besides yourself and wear a mask, only the vulnerable should be wearing a mask. anyone who says differently knows nothing about viruses or about our immune system. I don’t forecast the news because that’s not what I went to school for. Get out any A&p textbook and read about immunity, viruses, diseases, vaccines etc. All you’re doing is letting them hurt us more by believing in their fear tactics. God help us all if this continues.

    • Moron! Did you not read the ages of the last to get it? Most were kids. Mask up! Or, be selfish and let Karma take its course.

    • Perhaps you should have read your books and saw what happened the last time a global pandemic accrued. There is no helping folks like you. Sorry about that. Here is the hard question, You voted for Hillary didn’t you?

  4. Selfish twit. We are stuck in our house because people like you are too selfish to wear a mask to protect my husband (a 65 year old vet in a wheelchair with asthma and diabetes) and me. Thank you very much.

    • Yes they are. They will get theirs I assure you. Karma is a Beech. They have no Black Box points.

      • How can you say that? Have you destroyed your life’s work, just based on the “hope” that it might prevent people from getting this? Are you going without a pension check? Many will be left with nothing after this, and the vast majority of people affected by this are not in the group that is sacrificing their livelihood and dreams. Some people will never recover from this financially, and will watch everything they’ve worked for be ruined, and most all of them shut down to help. You don’t want to go out, don’t go out. That’s the best way to mitigate your risk- not scolding people who have made immense sacrifice for goodwill and the hope that it will help others. I read some of these comments and I really wonder who the selfish ones are. Howabout we can have debates about what is effective and what makes sense and we can look at the data and come to a place where individuals, can make informed decisions?

        • Even ants rebuild when they get flooded out. Life throws big league curves. Some can’t handle it. Most can. There is financial aid available. I am scolding people for not following mandates. Distancing, masking etc. They work. People that are infected without symptoms are making people sick. They should care about their fellow man regardless if they had bad luck.

          • We are not invulnerable, and no amount of hiding in holes and passing mandates will make us so. People are, and have been, dying from things they could have caught and remedied in time, had we not kept them, either deliberately or thru the fear campaign, from getting care. Others will die from the chaos and depression their lives will descend into after we have taken everything from them. These aren’t ants on an anthill, they are people. There was another way. A nuanced approach. Selective restrictions and protections for populations most at risk. Our state was better than most, but not all, at that approach. One size for all, rarely fits, and in this case thinking it will has cost us real, tangible lives. Everyone now knows what this is. Measures are in place that will outlast all the mandates. At some point, that is going to have to be enough, because people will not submit their lives and livelihoods to the whim of the state or their fearful neighbors forever. Life does throw curveballs, and in this case, the people who were not at risk, stepped in and took it on the chin for those who were at risk. Now they’ve made that sacrifice, they want to get back their life, they don’t deserve to be ridiculed or have their demise cheered on as some sort of fitting punishment, especially by those who didn’t.

  5. Sorry but the CDC says otherwise about masks.. If you’re sick wear one.. If not DON’T.

    According to the CDC
    despite the CDC specifically not recommending them for healthy people trying to protect against COVID-19. “It seems kind of intuitively obvious that if you put something—whether it’s a scarf or a mask—in front of your nose and mouth, that will filter out some of these viruses that are floating around out there,” says Dr. William Schaffner, professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University. The only problem: that’s not likely to be effective against respiratory illnesses like the flu and COVID-19. If it were, “the CDC would have recommended it years ago,” he says. “It doesn’t, because it makes science-based recommendations.”

    The science, according to the CDC, says that surgical masks won’t stop the wearer from inhaling small airborne particles, which can cause infection. Nor do these masks form a snug seal around the face. The CDC recommends surgical masks only for people who already show symptoms of coronavirus and must go outside, since wearing a mask can help prevent spreading the virus by protecting others nearby when you cough or sneeze. The agency also recommends these masks for caregivers of people infected with the virus.

    The CDC also does not recommend N95 respirators—the tight-fitting masks designed to filter out 95% of particles from the air that you breathe—for use, except for health care workers. Doctors and health experts keep spreading the word. “Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!” tweeted Dr. Jerome Adams, the U.S. Surgeon General, on Feb. 29. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!” In an interview with Fox & Friends, Adams said that wearing a mask can even increase your risk of getting the virus. “Folks who don’t know how to wear them properly tend to touch their faces a lot and actually can increase the spread of coronavirus.”

    But people keep buying and wearing masks.

    Some believe that wearing a mask reduces how many times they touch their nose and mouth, “but there aren’t any data to support that that’s a useful intervention,” Schaffner says. Other reasons are purely psychological. One stems from the fear of losing control to a virus we know little about preventing. “There’s not much we can do, so we’re all walking around feeling rather victimized by this virus,” says Schaffner. “By using a mask, even if it doesn’t do a lot, it moves the locus of control to you, away from the virus. It gives the individual a greater sense of control in this otherwise not-controlled situation.”

    Lynn Bufka, a clinical psychologist and senior director for practice, research and policy at the American Psychological Association, suspects that people are clinging to masks for the same reason they knock on wood or avoid walking under ladders. “Even if experts are saying it’s really not going to make a difference, a little [part of] people’s brains is thinking, well, it’s not going to hurt. Maybe it’ll cut my risk just a little bit, so it’s worth it to wear a mask,” she says. In that sense, wearing a mask is a “superstitious behavior”: if someone wore a mask when coronavirus or another viral illness was spreading and did not get sick, they may credit the mask for keeping them safe and keep wearing it.

    • Picking out what is said about N95 masks and confusing that with cloth masks is dishonest karaboo.

      The CDC recommends cloth face masks be worn to help stop the spread of contagion.

      Here below is the quote from the CDC website:

      Use of Cloth Face Coverings to Help Slow the Spread of COVID-19
      Learn More
      CDC continues to study the spread and effects of the novel coronavirus across the United States. We now know from recent studies that a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms (“asymptomatic”) and that even those who eventually develop symptoms (“pre-symptomatic”) can transmit the virus to others before showing symptoms. This means that the virus can spread between people interacting in close proximity—for example, speaking, coughing, or sneezing—even if those people are not exhibiting symptoms. In light of this new evidence, CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.

      It is critical to emphasize that maintaining 6-feet social distancing remains important to slowing the spread of the virus. CDC is additionally advising the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others. Cloth face coverings fashioned from household items or made at home from common materials at low cost can be used as an additional, voluntary public health measure.

      The cloth face coverings recommended are not surgical masks or N-95 respirators. Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.

      Wear a mask and respect others.

    • There are idiots in every profession. Remember when they used to shove an ice pick in the corner of your eye and scramble your brain because you were having nightmares? Masks filter incoming as well as outgoing air. The virus is not just in a sneeze or a cough. It is in your breath. If you are breathing on somebody, you are exposing them to whatever you have.

    • In addition, by wearing a mask, you prevent spreading the china virus if you have it. You don’t know you have it in some cases, so you could go around infecting people without knowing it.

    • On the date you quoted the surgen general, they were still trying to prevent shortages in hospitals and a run on home depot. All that you posted in over 2 months out of date.

  6. I had a sore throat, headache, phlegm and achy muscles 3 times in March and April. Never had a fever. Couldn’t get tested but stayed home each time. Each time the symptoms were milder. Wore a mask after self quarantine. Had 50 nice surgicals. Finally got tested negative. Don’t wear a mask anymore and am fine.

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