Governor provides state COVID-19 update

ANCHORAGE — Gov. Dunleavy hosted a COVID-19 press conference on Tuesday to announce updated numbers on CARES act grant funding and additional unemployment insurance available to Alaskans.

Dunleavy thanked the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee for their work approving the RPL submitted by Dunleavy. Department of Commerce, Community and Early Development Commissioner Julie Anderson noted 812 additional applications for CARES act grants on Monday after the approval of secondary income businesses and businesses that had received Paycheck Protection Program or Economic Injury Disaster Loans. In total, 5,785 applications have been received totaling more than $300 million in requested funds.

“Due to fact that the amount of funds requested is close to the program cap, we are placing a notice on the online application portal and the CARES website alerting the public to the fact that the program appears to be oversubscribed, meaning more funds have been requested than are available through the program. However, we will continue to accept new applications for the time being because as I stated that’s a number that’s dependent on what expenses and what businesses are deemed eligible,” said Anderson.

Dunleavy submitted his RPL to LB&A on August 20 which was approved on August 27, allowing for more newly eligible businesses on August 31. Of those newly eligible businesses that applied, $55.6 million in funds was requested. Of the $290 million of funds available through the Alaska CARES program, $62.8 million has already been disbursed, leaving an available $216 million. Out of the 3,200 applications processed by Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, 43 percent were submitted by commercial fishermen and 27 percent were submitted by tourism industry businesses.

“While all of our businesses have been impacted, I think everyone understands how significantly the fishing and tourism industries have been impacted through this virus,” said Anderson.

AIDEA Executive Director Alan Weitzner said that 55 different employees are working on processing applications and turnaround time for granting applications has improved. Weitzner also said that nearly one quarter of all funds have been approved to rural Alaskan communities.

Dunleavy stated that he was proud of the work done by state agencies and local communities in preparation for fishing season to prevent large outbreaks from out of state workers affecting coastal communities. Responding to a question from last week’s press conference about hospital reporting, Dunleavy said that hospitals are not required to report their cases.

“The remaining six hospitals that did not report consistently included military and behavioral health hospitals. It’s also important to note that there’s no mandate for hospitals actually to report to the state so the information that we get from them is voluntarily reported,” said Dunleavy.

A total of 35 new resident cases were reported in Alaska. Alaska has had 6,160 total cases of COVID-19 and 5,298 resident cases with 3,208 still active. A new death was reported on Tuesday, bringing the state’s total to 39. Of the 220 cumulative hospitalizations, 39 are currently hospitalized and nine require ventilators. Alaska has administered 374,255 total tests to date.

“We see this with many diseases including covid where many people can get the disease and they can spread it to others, but they may never get ill or be very mildly symptomatic. Other diseases are like this as well polio, 95 percent of people are completely asymptomatic with polio,” said Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink. “The goal is to make sure that we’re not spreading it to those who are going to become more ill associated with it and to minimize the impacts of it, and so tests can be a useful tool with that, including those who are asymptomatic but were in close contact to others just to make sure that they don’t inadvertently spread it.”

Zink reported that Alaska is currently in the orange alert level with five to 10 cases per 100,000 residents over the last two weeks. Alaska’s cumulative test positivity rate is 1.81 while the Mat-Su’s rate is 1.7. The Mat-Su had five new cases reported on Tuesday with four in Palmer and one in Wasilla. A total of 490 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the Mat-Su with 286 remaining active. Of those, 14 nonresident cases were reported. Of the 13 people that have been hospitalized, three currently require hospitalization. The Mat-Su has a seven-day case rate average of 4.14 with 29 cases over the last seven days. Zink mentioned Providence’s long term care facility for their exemplary work in responding to an outbreak that ultimately resulted in deaths of two people and stressed the importance of getting vaccines updated.

“We also have the flu vaccine out and about. We really don’t want to have a double epidemic of covid and flu this fall so really encouraging all Alaskans to get the flu vaccine helps to minimize the chance that you will get sick and need a hospital bed. It helps to minimize hospitalizations and deaths,” said Zink.