Another Alaskan has died with COVID-19 — the 16th death of an Alaskan from the virus.
Details about the death reported on Saturday were not immediately available. However, the state reported on Friday that the 15th person who died was an Anchorage man in his 80s who died in June.
State health officials reported that by the end of the day on Friday, 55 new cases had been identified: 48 residents and 7 non-residents.
The majority of the new cases are in Anchorage where 32 residents have tested positive for the virus. Health officials there released a list of bars and other establishments where people who have had COVID-19 have been. They’ve asked people who have visited those places to monitor themselves for symptoms and get tested.
There are also new cases in residents from the Kenai Peninsula, Fairbanks, the Yukon-Koyokuk region, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Southeast Alaska in Petersburg and Southwest Alaska in the Bristol Bay Region and the Kulsilvak area.
Among the non-residents, two are in Anchorage, two are in Valdez, two are in Fairbanks and one is in Juneau. It’s unclear why most of them are visiting Alaska, though one of the Anchorage cases and the two in Valdez are related to the seafood industry
So far, 1,111 Alaskans have tested positive for COVID-19, and there are now more people currently sick than have recovered. So far, 230 nonresidents in Alaska have tested positive.
The state’s rate of transmission is still projected to be above 1, which means that on average each person who gets infected will pass COVID-19 onto more than one other person. At this rate, the virus is expected to spread quickly.
