Sunday’s number of cases comes after a few weeks of lower daily case numbers. Alaska saw a peak in cases in November and early December that raised concerns about hospital capacity and eventually led to a month-long abolition throughout Anchorage. Case numbers began to decline in December.
As infections continue to plummet, Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson announced last week that the city will relax COVID-19 restrictions. A new emergency order goes into effect Monday and will allow more people inside pubs and restaurants and limit the size.
Despite the small numbers during January, Alaska is in the highest alert category based on the current infection rate per capita. In Western Alaska, the number of cases remains high and is even increasing in some rural towns experiencing severe COVID-19 outbreaks.
The seafood industry has been hit again with several outbreaks among vessels and processing facilities in the Aleut Islands. Some of the facilities temporarily closed just as the winter fishing season began.
Hospitalizations have dropped simultaneously with the number of infections and are now less than a third of the places where they were during the peak in November and December. By Sunday, there were 38 people with COVID-19 in hospitals across the state. It is believed that four more patients have the virus.
Health officials are urging Alaskans to continue to take the pandemic seriously, even as numbers have dropped. Scientists from the state’s public health laboratories confirmed last week that a highly contagious variant of the virus had reached Alaska last month.
The vaccine reached Alaska in mid-December. By Friday, when the state released the latest data, 90,777 people – about 12% of Alaska’s population – have been vaccinated, according to the State Vaccine Monitoring Panel. This is almost twice the national average of 6.9%.
Healthcare workers and nursing home staff and residents were the first people to receive the vaccine. In early January, the state said Alaskans over the age of 65 are now eligible, although appointment slots are limited and quickly filled.
Thousands of new vaccine appointments are available on the state’s website this week. Elderly and other eligible health care professionals can call 907-646-3322 for help making an appointment in February.
Of the 130 cases announced Sunday in Alaska residents, 41 were in Anchorage, one in Chugiak and two in Eagle River; one was in Homer, one in Nikiski, one in Seward and one in Soldotna; two were in Kodiak; 12 were in Fairbanks and two in the North Pole; one was in Palmer and six in Wasilla; a wax in Nome; a wax in Kotzebue; three were in Douglas and two in Juneau; a wax in Ketchikan; one was in Sitka; one was in Wrangell; four were in Unalaska; and eight were in Bethel.
Among communities with a population of less than 1,000 people not named for privacy, one was in the city of Kodiak Island; four were in the Copper River area of the Valdez-Cordova census area; two were in the Census Area Southeast Fairbanks; two were in the Yukon-Koyukuk census area; one was in the Matanuska-Susitna district; two were in the Northwest North Pole area; 16 were in the Bethel census area; and nine were in the Kusilvak census area.
Seven infections were identified in non-residents, including one in Anchorage, one in the Aleutians East Borough and two in Unalaska. The health department was still investigating the location in three of the cases.
Although people can be tested more than once, each case reported by the state health department represents only one person.
The state’s data does not determine whether people who are positive for COVID-19 have symptoms. According to CDC estimates, more than half of the country’s infections are transmitted by asymptomatic people.
In the past week, 2.39% of all tests completed across the country returned positive.