March 25 Alaska COVID-19 Update - 17 More Cases Up to 59

First, my daily summary of new cases/cumulative cases.  Wednesday we had 17 new/59 cumulative cases.  That's the highest daily jump after Tuesday's dip down to only 6 new cases.

CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES ALASKA MARCH 2020
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
new/total			12th  = 0/0	13th = 1/1	14th = 0/1	15th = 0/1
16th = 0/1	17th = 2/3	18th = 3/6	19th = 3/9	20th = 3/12	21st= 2/14	22nd= 8/22
23rd=14/36	24th =6/42 1 hos 1 dead	25th = 17/59 1 hos 1 dead

From the State's update page. (Note, what's up today will be replaced by the new charts.  I haven't found any other place where you can find all the older charts, except on this blog.  I'm using the tag "Alaska COVID-19 Count" for these posts.  You can click on the tag under these posts.)

I'm still trying to find a definition of 'date of onset' and how they determine that.  So the chart above DOESN'T tell us the day new cases were confirmed.  My understanding is that "date of onset" might be useful to predict new cases, but I'm not sure if that's true or how it works.  

And if anyone from the state is reading this, I'd suggest that when you have two or more of one color, instead of one big block, you separate each individual case with the same lines you use between colors.  It would be easier for people to count that way.

"Close-contact" and "Pending" have been added to the chart.  Dr. Zink explained this a little bit in last night's press conference, but the difference between non-travel and close-contact still isn't clear to me.  I'm thinking, if someone touched a surface - a door handle or an ATM keypad and then touched their face - how can you track that down?  I don't think you can, at least not for sure.

The chart above is getting longer on the screen (as the state adds individual towns and cities) and harder for me to capture in a single screen shot.  Maybe tomorrow I'll just copy the whole page, even though it has more info than I'm trying to get here.  I'll experiment.

After a steep rise on March 23 the number of new tests dropped sharply on March 24.  

Alaska Covid-19 Data by Steve on Scribd

It's another beautiful day in Anchorage I hope people can get out and enjoy it.  It seems for walkers there's plenty of space to practice healthy physical distancing.