Alaska reports 1,526 new COVID-19 cases in past week as increase continues

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• The Alaska Division of Well being and Social Providers on Wednesday reported 1,526 instances of COVID-19 in Alaska over the prior seven days. That’s a slight improve from final week, and averages round 218 instances per day. This knowledge doesn’t embody at-home checks.

• The state reported 13 extra deaths linked to the virus. In complete, 1,215 COVID-19 deaths amongst Alaska residents and 33 amongst nonresidents have been reported since March 2020. Most of the deaths reported by the state in latest weeks occurred weeks to months earlier.

• Alaska’s seven-day new case fee per 100,000 folks rose from sixth-highest within the nation final week to fourth-highest this week, in response to a CDC tracker.

• By Wednesday, there have been 20 COVID-positive sufferers hospitalized statewide, six fewer than final week. Lower than 2% of Alaska’s hospital sufferers have been COVID-positive, together with 5 folks on ventilators.

• In keeping with Alaska’s coronavirus variant dashboard, the overwhelming majority — 82.5% — of probably the most lately sequenced viruses from specimens collected late in March have been the BA.2 “stealth” omicron subvariant. BA.2 seems to be extra transmissible than different variants however no more virulent or higher at evading immune responses conferred by vaccination or prior an infection.

• As of Wednesday, 64.7% of eligible Alaskans in addition to navy personnel had accomplished their major vaccine sequence. That quantity has been very slowly ticking up in latest weeks.

• The FDA lately accepted one other Pfizer or Moderna booster shot for these 50 and older, in addition to for sure youthful people with severely compromised immune techniques, if it’s been at the very least 4 months since their final vaccination. Details about getting a vaccine shot or booster in Alaska is out there at covidvax.alaska.gov.

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The state well being division has lately shifted to updating all of its COVID-19 knowledge on Wednesdays solely as an alternative of updating most dashboards 3 times every week.