Alaska reports 821 COVID-19 cases over past 5 days, plus 6 deaths

• Alaska on Wednesday reported 821 cases of COVID-19 over the past five days. The state did not release updated COVID-19 numbers on Monday because it was a holiday.

• Starting next week, the state health department will update its COVID-19 data only on Wednesdays instead of updating most dashboards three times a week, as it does currently. The department said on Facebook that “this change is part of our transition toward longer-term data reporting.”

• Alaska already reports data on COVID-19 deaths on a weekly basis. This week, six more deaths were reported.

• The deaths involved one man from Fairbanks in his 80s; one man from Wasilla in his 80s; one man from Anchorage in his 70s; two women from Anchorage in their 60s; and one woman from the Southeast Fairbanks Census area in her 60s.

• Even though cases have fallen, Alaska’s seven-day new case rate per 100,000 people is still the highest in the nation, according to a CDC tracker.

• Since the pandemic began two years ago, 1,195 Alaskans and 33 nonresidents have died from the virus. Many of the deaths being reported by the state in recent weeks occurred weeks to months earlier.

• By Wednesday, there were 34 COVID-positive patients hospitalized statewide — down one from Friday. About 2.7% of Alaska’s hospital patients were COVID-positive. Two were on ventilators.

• According to Alaska’s coronavirus variant dashboard, about 45% of the most recently sequenced viruses, from specimens collected in late February, were the BA.2 “stealth” omicron subvariant. BA.2 appears to be more transmissible than other variants but not more virulent, and does not seem to be better at evading immune responses conferred by vaccination or prior infection. Health officials around the world are watching BA.2 closely as some places like the United Kingdom begin to see an uptick in cases driven by the subvariant.

• As of Wednesday, 64.3% of eligible Alaskans as well as military personnel had completed their primary vaccine series.