Alaska COVID-19 Count Thursday May 7, 2020 - 3 New Cases 14 New Recoveries

So far my concerns last week about loosening restrictions last week are proving unfounded.  Alaska's numbers seem to be low enough that we haven't yet had a rebound.  I'm still concerned about the influx of Outside fishers coming into small communities all over Alaska.  I don't have faith in voluntary isolation.  Especially among a population of risk-takers. (Fishing is one of the most dangerous professions there is.)  Nor am I confident in the sea-food industry to put health over profit. There's been one report already of a cannery worker testing positive in Cordova.  But at least he was tested (negative) before arriving and tested again after arriving.  The report says he's being tested a third time to see if it was a false positive.  But those three tests in a short period of time show the pressing need for LOTS of tests.

The three new cases are all in Anchorage.


My Calendar Chart

CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES ALASKA MARCH/APRIL/May 2020
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
new/total	hos=hospital		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 3 hos 1 dead	26th = 10/69 3 hos 1 dead	27th =16/89 5 hos 2 dead	28th = 13/102 6 hos 2 dead	29th= 12/114 7 hos  3 dead
30th=5/119 7 hos 3 dead	31st= 14/133 9 hos 3 dead
April 2020		1st=  10/143 9 hos 3 dead	2nd=8(6)/149 13 hos 3 dead	3rd=8(11)157 15 hos 3 dead	4th=15/171 16 hos 5 dead	5th= 14/185 20 hos 6 dead
6th=6/191 23 hosp 6 dead	7th= 22/213 23 hosp 6 Dead29 recovered	8th= 13/226 27 hosp 7 dead 32 recovered	9th= 9/235 27 hosp 7 dead 49 recovered	10th=11/246 28 hosp 7 dead 55 recovered	11th=11/257 31 hosp 8 dead 63 recovered	12th= 15/272 31 hosp 8 dead 66 recovered
13th= 5/277 32 Hosp 8 dead 85 Recovered	14th = 8/285 32 Hosp 9 dead 98 Recovered	15th= 8/293 34 Hosp 9 dead 106 Recovered	16th= 7/300 35 hosp 9 dead 110 recovered	17th=  9/309 36 hosp 9 dead 128 recovered	18th =  5/315 36 hos 9 dead 147 Recovered	19th= 4/319 36 hos 9 dead 153Recovered
20th 2/321 36 hos 9 dead 161 recovered	21st 8/329 36 hos 9 dead 168 recovered	22nd  6/335 36 hos  9 dead 196recovered	23nd  2/337 36 hos  9 dead 209recovered	24th  2/339 36 hos  9 dead 208recovered (-1 from 4/23)	25th  0/339 36 hos  9 dead 217recovered	26th  2/341 36 hos  9 dead 217recovered
27th  4/345 37 hos  9 dead 218recovered	28th  6/351 37 hos  9 dead 228 recovered	29th  4/355 36 hos  9 dead 240recovered	30th  0/355 36 hos  9 dead 252recovered
May 2020				1st  9/364 36 hos  9 dead 254recovered	2nd  1/365 36 hos  9 dead 261recovered	3rd  3/368 36 hos  9 dead 262recovered
4th  2/370 37 hos  9 dead 263recovered	5th  1/371 38 hos  9 dead 277 recovered	6th  1/372 38 hos 10 dead 284recovered	7th  2/374 38 hos 10 dead 291recovered	8th  3/377 38 hos 10 dead 305 recovered

State Charts

This screen shot is high resolution so you can click on it to enlarge and focus.  But click here if you want to use the chart interactively, to play with the original and see other charts they have.



My Day-To-Day Chart

Alaska Covid-19 Data NewFor... by Steve on Scribd

I'd note there were, according to the numbers from the State, 1,132 new tests yesterday.

Alaska COVID-19 Count Thursday May 7, 2020 - 2 New Cases Plus How's Your State Doing On Testing?

Alaska is doing well.  Only two more cases.  More people have recovered (291) than are still infected (83).   [I'm only talking about confirmed cases since there may be others out there who haven't been tested but are infected.]

NPR and Harvard put together a model for how much testing state's need to do before opening up businesses and relaxing stay at home orders.  Alaska is among the nine states they deemed doing enough testing.   The others are  Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

 I've added more on that at the bottom of this post.

CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES ALASKA MARCH/APRIL/May 2020
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
new/total	hos=hospital		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 3 hos 1 dead	26th = 10/69 3 hos 1 dead	27th =16/89 5 hos 2 dead	28th = 13/102 6 hos 2 dead	29th= 12/114 7 hos  3 dead
30th=5/119 7 hos 3 dead	31st= 14/133 9 hos 3 dead
April 2020		1st=  10/143 9 hos 3 dead	2nd=8(6)/149 13 hos 3 dead	3rd=8(11)157 15 hos 3 dead	4th=15/171 16 hos 5 dead	5th= 14/185 20 hos 6 dead
6th=6/191 23 hosp 6 dead	7th= 22/213 23 hosp 6 Dead29 recovered	8th= 13/226 27 hosp 7 dead 32 recovered	9th= 9/235 27 hosp 7 dead 49 recovered	10th=11/246 28 hosp 7 dead 55 recovered	11th=11/257 31 hosp 8 dead 63 recovered	12th= 15/272 31 hosp 8 dead 66 recovered
13th= 5/277 32 Hosp 8 dead 85 Recovered	14th = 8/285 32 Hosp 9 dead 98 Recovered	15th= 8/293 34 Hosp 9 dead 106 Recovered	16th= 7/300 35 hosp 9 dead 110 recovered	17th=  9/309 36 hosp 9 dead 128 recovered	18th =  5/315 36 hos 9 dead 147 Recovered	19th= 4/319 36 hos 9 dead 153Recovered
20th 2/321 36 hos 9 dead 161 recovered	21st 8/329 36 hos 9 dead 168 recovered	22nd  6/335 36 hos  9 dead 196recovered	23nd  2/337 36 hos  9 dead 209recovered	24th  2/339 36 hos  9 dead 208recovered (-1 from 4/23)	25th  0/339 36 hos  9 dead 217recovered	26th  2/341 36 hos  9 dead 217recovered
27th  4/345 37 hos  9 dead 218recovered	28th  6/351 37 hos  9 dead 228 recovered	29th  4/355 36 hos  9 dead 240recovered	30th  0/355 36 hos  9 dead 252recovered
May 2020				1st  9/364 36 hos  9 dead 254recovered	2nd  1/365 36 hos  9 dead 261recovered	3rd  3/368 36 hos  9 dead 262recovered
4th  2/370 37 hos  9 dead 263recovered	5th  1/371 38 hos  9 dead 277 recovered	6th  1/372 38 hos 10 dead 284recovered	7th  2/372 38 hos 10 dead 291recovered

State Charts

This screen shot is high resolution so you can click on it to enlarge and focus.  But click here if you want to use the chart interactively, to play with the original and see other charts they have.



My Day-To-Day Chart

Alaska Covid-19 Data NewFor... by Steve on Scribd

In the last week, Alaska has tested just under 5000 more people.  But remember, people who have been tested and found negative, could be exposed the next day.


The Harvard model looks at two main things - how many tests a state needs to do to be able to phase out social distancing.

"How Much Testing Does Your State Need To Contain Its Outbreak?

Harvard’s Global Health Institute estimated minimum targets for how much testing each state needs by May 15 to contain its outbreak through a strategy of testing, tracing and isolating positive cases and their contacts. Death rates are provided as a marker of outbreak size. A positive test ratio of 10% or less is the target advised by the World Health Organization. States with higher ratios may not be testing enough, or testing a diverse enough pool of people."

Alaska is in great shape, compared to most states.  Here are their numbers for Alaska.  The death column is just to give a sense of the issue for each state.  Our target for tests is well below our actual 89 tests/100K people.  And we're way below the ratio they want for positive tests/overall tests.  The target is 10% maximum, and we're at less than one-half percent (.4%).

You can see the list of all the states here.

Here's the piece describing this on NPR:

Pause For A Prayer

From A Concord Pastor Comments

Sometimes when I pray, Lord,
I imagine sitting next to you
on a park bench, on a warm day,
a grassy carpet at my feet...

Sometimes we just sit there,
you and I, just the two of us,
in a moment made holy
by the silence we share...

Or I pour out my heart to you
and share my cares and worries
while you listen
and gently wipe away my tears...

(It goes on, but that's the relevant part.)

My regular readers are probably scratching their heads by now.

Someone in Mountain View, California got to this old post ( What Do I Know?: Little India, The Arab Quarter, and Peranakan) of mine from a blog called A Concord Pastor Comments.  Nowadays, most of the browsers don't leave behind the search terms people use to get to your website.  When they did, I sometimes did a post looking at what people searched for and what they got.  (For example:  "Where Can I Ride A Trained Polar Bear?")  That's interesting for a blogger because you can see what people were looking for to get to your blog.  Sometimes it's a great match, other times it leaves you wondering.

But I rarely get to see the search terms these days.  Most often from Bing.  But this one had a link so I went to the Pastor's blog to see why my post got linked.

I wandered around the site not finding any links to my blog and then I saw the picture of the two people on the bench in the park.  I took that while I was visiting my son in Singapore where he was studying for his Masters degree and I was on my way home after volunteering three months in Chiengmai, Thailand.

It really is a perfect picture for the poem.  Few people seeing the picture and poem would imagine the two on the bench are Chinese and the park is in Singapore.   And I appreciate the Pastor linking to the source of the picture.  Not everyone who uses someone else's photo acknowledges where they got it.


It turns out there were about 12 other hits on the Singapore post all clustered together around the same time from around the country, but none of the others showed how they got to my blog.