Monday was a peak day for new COVID-19 cases in Alaska. The state’s chief medical officer Dr. Anne Zink shared the number during an online press conference Tuesday night.
"We have our biggest increase, with 22 additional cases."
Monday’s new confirmed cases included 9 in Fairbanks, and 2 in North Pole, the Fairbanks North Star Borough’s highest one-day total yet, and Dr. Zink said the area continues to be a response focus.
"Fairbanks is testing more than other areas per capita, but the was we are analyzing these, and the epi component of it, we are really worried about the clusters in Fairbanks. I messaged a week ago that Fairbanks was a 'hot spot'. We continue to be concerned because of some of the spread that happened early on; the cases lag from what happened two weeks ago, when someone was initially exposed.”
Zink said there’s also growing concern about Anchorage, where 10 new cases were confirmed Monday.
"We are starting to see some clusters in the Anchorage area.”
Monday’s other new case was in the Bethel area, the first in rural Alaska, where Zink said the state is working with tribal partners like the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium which has secured and distributed 40 so-called Abbott COVID-19 test analysis machines.
"These machines don't test a lot of cases at once, but they can return test results in-location, so we don't have to send test to our state labs.”
Zink said with federal support, the state has secured an additional 50 Abbott machines for distribution in rural Alaska, noting that the machines are best suited to small communities with low test volumes.
Also on Tuesday, Governor Dunleavy reached out to health care workers seeking employment, and people and businesses with technical and manufacturing expertise and capacity, who may be able to help the state respond to the pandemic.
The state has already used a similar process to identify companies which may be able to provide housing for people quarantined for COVID-19 monitoring.