State reports 119 new cases of COVID-19, the highest daily number yet in Alaska – Anchorage Daily News

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The state of Alaska reported 119 new cases of COVID-19 Sunday, the most statewide cases in a single day since the start of the pandemic.

No new deaths or hospitalizations were reported. There were 82 resident and 37 non-resident cases, according to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services coronavirus response site.

Thirty-six of the 37 non-resident cases were found in Unalaska and one in Juneau.

In Alaska residents, there were 36 cases in Anchorage, 10 in the Yukon-Koyukuk census area, nine in Fairbanks, seven in Wasilla, four each in Eagle River and Juneau, three in Soldotna, two in Homer and one each in Nikiski, Seward, Palmer, Sutton-Alpine, Ketchikan, a community marked as other in the Southeast Fairbanks census area and a community labeled as other in the Nome census area.

Six seafood workers in Unalaska aboard the American Triumph, an American Seafoods vessel, tested positive for COVID-19 Friday, after which all of the remaining 119 crewmembers were tested, the company wrote in a statement. It was not immediately clear if the spike in cases Sunday was tied to the outbreak on the vessel. There are now 48 COVID-19 cases confirmed in Unalaska.

The City and Borough of Juneau announced Sunday that 26 seafood workers tested positive for COVID-19. The results were not included in the states Sunday count because the test results were processed on Sunday, making them too late to include in the states full count of Saturday cases.

Nine employees at Juneaus Alaska Glacier Seafoods tested positive for the virus last week, the city said in an online statement. The cases stemmed from one employee who had contracted COVID-19 through community spread. The remaining 113 employees were then tested for the virus and about 23% were positive. The infected individuals are isolating, the city said. It was not immediately clear how many of them are non-residents.

There have been 2,277 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Alaska since the beginning of the pandemic. Eighteen Alaskans who contracted the virus have died, including an Anchorage woman in her mid-50s whose death was reported Saturday. She had pre-existing health conditions, DHSS said in an online statement.

There are 1,427 active COVID-19 cases in Alaska and 832 people have recovered from the virus.

Currently, there are 27 people in the hospital who tested positive for COVID-19 or are suspected to have contracted it and are awaiting test results, according to the state of Alaska. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 99 people have been hospitalized for COVID-19 statewide.

The number of cases across the state has been steadily rising in previous weeks. Sunday marks the second time the state has seen over 100 cases in a single day. The previous daily high case count was reported last Sunday, with 116 cases on July 12.

As cases have risen during the last few weeks, Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz noted that restrictions may be placed on the city again out of concern that the rising case numbers could overwhelm local hospitals. There were a record number of new cases in Anchorage reported last week, with 231 new cases and nearly twice as many nonresident infections as reported during the previous week.

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State reports 119 new cases of COVID-19, the highest daily number yet in Alaska - Anchorage Daily News