Governor announces arrival of more medical, testing supplies

ANCHORAGE — Gov. Dunleavy announced that three more Alaskans have died as a result of infection with coronavirus, bringing the cumulative total to six deaths of Alaskans.

Only six new cases of COVID 19 were announced on Monday, bringing the state’s total up to 191 with 24 cases of individuals who have recovered from the symptoms of the virus. Three more Alaskans also were hospitalized, bringing the state’s total up to 23.

Along with additional data on how the outbreak of COVID 19 is affecting Alaskans, Dunleavy announced the arrival of 18,000 pounds of medical supplies from Samaritan’s Purse and Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink announced the expansion of testing in rural Alaska with additional resources from Samaritan’s Purse and the Federal government.

“The infection rate that’s occurring in Alaska is actually helping us with the time that we need to again build up our health care capabilities which we’re doing,” said Dunleavy.

Samaritan’s Purse is a Christian organization led by Franklin Graham who flew up the medical supplies that will augment stockpiles in eight rural hub communities on Monday. Additional supplies of drapes, towels, 5,400 examination gloves, 30,000 surgical masks and 200,000 additional forms of surgical masks along with 27 hospital beds and 15 with mattresses were delivered.

Dunleavy announced on Monday that Friday at 2 p.m., will be the Governor’s day of prayer and hope to thank health care professionals, first responders, public safety officers, state and municipal workers.

“We’re going to call in all the resources we can get, resources made here on earth by man and resources that come from above as well,” said Dunleavy.

Dunleavy said that additional information on ventilators and testing will be released on Wednesday and that his administration will continue to dissect the Federal relief monies made available by the CARES act. When asked about the preparation of the Bristol Bay fishery, Dunleavy said that he remains in active conversations with community leaders and health officials on how to best prepare for the upcoming fishing season amid the global pandemic.

“Our numbers are pretty good compared to other states, compared to other countries. So what does that really mean, it means right now Alaska is probably the state currently, as we speak today at this moment, because this can change at any time, in better shape in terms of the actual infections and numbers,” said Dunleavy.

Zink thanked health care workers such as herself during press conference opening comments and reminded listeners that this week is National public health workers week. Zink detailed epidemiology information on the new cases, where six more people tested positive and three more were hospitalized over the last 24 hours. Of the six new cases, Zink said that one is under the age of 10 and one is over the age of 80 with new cases in Petersburg, Soldotna, Fairbanks and three new cases in Anchorage. Zink highlighted that 29 of the state’s 31 economic regions have performed testing and Fairbanks has tested 1.44 percent of their population.

“I just really appreciate everyone’s hard work in slowing it down. We’re seeing data from other states that’s really showing that this social mitigation and social distancing really makes a huge difference so thank you to all Alaskans for doing what we’re doing,” said Zink.

Zink noted that the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium has stood up testing at their facility and highlighted the arrival of 90 new Abbot testing machines to provide same day results for patients with symptoms consistent with COVID 19. Zink said that 40 of the Abbott machines with 2,400 tests would be distributed to rural areas and 50 additional machines with 5,016 tests arrived from FEMA.

“It’s exciting to see really diverse testing across the state and we really appreciate our epi team and our data team pulling all that testing data,” said Zink.

Emergency Operations Center Incident Commander Bryan Fisher with the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management discussed possibilities for alternate care sites. The Alaska Airlines Center on the University of Alaska Anchorage has already received some planning assistance from the Army Corps of Engineers and a request has been sent to FEMA for the ACE to complete the next phase. Fisher said that 155 beds could be set up at the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage. Fisher also noted that the Carlson Center in Fairbanks is being utilized as well as schools in rural communities and triage tents in Southeast.

“The capacity is really being built in our hub communities to be able to treat folks and alleviate some of the surge that happens in our area hospitals,” said Fisher.

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