State health officials reported 44 new COVID-19 cases from Wednesday. That’s the highest single-day total of new infections in the state yet. It includes 25 Alaskans and 19 nonresidents.
It’s the fourth time in the past month that the state has a new daily high.
The new nonresident cases include 17 seafood industry workers: Nine in the Bristol Bay and Lake and Peninsula boroughs, two in Wrangell and one case each in Anchorage and Seward and four whose location is listed as unknown.
There’s also a nonresident visitor in Anchorage and a nonresident in Valdez whose purpose for visiting was listed as “other.”
The Alaskans include six each from Anchorage and Fairbanks, three from Homer, two each from Eagle River and North Pole and one each from Bethel, Palmer, Seward, Valdez, Wasilla and an unnamed community in the north Kenai Peninsula Borough.
Many of the new Alaskan cases over the past week have stemmed from the Fairbanks area, after the borough recorded very few new infections from early April to mid-June.
The number of Alaskans diagnosed with COVID-19 who have not recovered yet also reached a new high by the end of Wednesday: 291. That’s 25 more than any previous day.
The total number of cases among residents is now 816, and the number of cases among non-Alaskans is 157. There are no new deaths, leaving the total at 12.
The data includes cases through the end of the day Wednesday.
There are 14 people hospitalized in Alaska who have COVID-19 or are suspected to have disease. Two them are on ventilators, according to the state’s data.
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Across the country, the number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb. On Thursday, the number of new infections in the U.S. set a new single-day record, The Washington Post reported.
Alaska continues to have one of the country’s lowest infection rates per capita despite its rising numbers.
Andrew Kitchenman is the state government and politics reporter for Alaska Public Media and KTOO in Juneau. Reach him at akitchenman@alaskapublic.org.
