Over the weekend, the number of patients in Alaska receiving COVID19 hospital increased again and established a new record.
On Monday, the state’s health department reported 210 COVID19 patients to hospitals in Alaska, the highest number on record. Thirty-three of them were under ventilation.
Intensive Care Beds Are Full As COVID Rises In Alaskan
Health officials have also warned that the actual number of hospitalizations is likely even higher because the state data does not include any long-term coronavirus patients, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Hospital workers continued to sound the alarm bells about the relentless wave of COVID19, led by the delta variant, straining abilities.
All of Anchorage’s adult intensive care beds were listed as full on Monday afternoon, state data showed.
And, according to the New York Times, Alaska ranked second in Germany on Monday, with the biggest increase in COVID19 hospitalizations in the past two weeks behind only North Dakota.
Monday, another Alaskan who died recently from COVID19 was also reported by the National Department of Health. The man was from Anchorage and was 80 or older. It is the 445th in Alaska to die from COVID19, according to the state.
Moreover, on Monday, two of his patients died from COVID, one of them aged 58 and the other 66, the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital reported in the previous 24 hours. Deaths in state data have not yet been included.
Over the last three days, the State has reported 1,473 new cases of coronavirus, with some 35% of new infections in Anchorage.
Meanwhile, the percentage of COVID19 tests that come back positive in Alaska continues to rise. Over the past week, the average daily rate of positive tests was 9.25%.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers the 5% to be too high. Alaska is one of the worst stricken places due to pandemic
Meanwhile, due to a delay in entering test data, these numbers may actually be worse than current daily reports indicate, as state health department staff struggle to track the number of daily test results.
Alaska Department of Health and Human Services epidemiologist Louisa Castrodale estimated the backlog in “thousands” but did not provide a specific figure on Thursday, saying some of the clinical cases could be duplicated.
Alaska’s 93 COVID19 cases per 100,000 population are the top quarter of the country, with South Carolina and behind West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, according to an analysis of New York Times data.
Public health workers are still alarmed that Alaska hospitals are overloaded with patients living with coronavirus, which forces anyone seeking assistance to wait longer.
Providence Alaska Medical Center Dr. Lisa Rabinowitz said that hospital staff did everything they could to ride the wave, but they were feeling the tension.
And he shared a personal story: “I was with a family member who needed a ventilator,” Rabinowitz said.
The state reported more than 1,000 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, after setting a record on Wednesday. Of the 120 beds in the Alaska ICU, 106 are said to be occupied.
The state immunization rate is 32 out of 50 in the United States.
State health officials on Thursday urged residents to dress up and maintain a social distance but said ultimately the best long-term way to prevent another wave is to get vaccinated.