DHSS today announced one Alaska resident death and 177 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 172 were residents in: Anchorage (56), Wasilla (46), Fairbanks (13), Delta Junction (10), Eagle River (9), Palmer (9), Houston (3), Willow (3), Big Lake (2), Copper River Census Area (2), Girdwood (2), Juneau (2), Soldotna (2), and one each in Bethel, Bethel Census Area, Chugiak, Cordova, Dillingham, Kenai, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Nome Census Area, North Pole, North Slope Borough, Petersburg, Seward, and one location under investigation.
Five new nonresident cases were identified in:
- Anchorage: one with purpose under investigation
- North Slope Borough: two with North Slope oil industry
- Prudhoe Bay: one with North Slope oil industry
- Location under investigation: one with purpose under investigation.
Two resident cases were subtracted from and one nonresident case was added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 58,428 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,503.
ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 17.35 cases per 100,000. Many regions of Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission. Four regions are at intermediate alert status with moderate transmission and two regions are at low alert with minimal transmission.
High (>10 cases/100,000)
- Matanuska-Susitna Region: 39.07 cases per 100,000
- Other Interior Region: 29.82 cases per 100,000
- YK-Delta Region: 25.59 cases per 100,000
- Anchorage Municipality: 16.39 cases per 100,000
- Fairbanks North Star Borough: 12.79 cases per 100,000
Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)
- Other Southeast Region – Northern: 9.1 cases per 100,000
- Kenai Peninsula Borough: 7.15 cases per 100,000
- Northwest Region: 5.27 cases per 100,000
- Juneau City and Borough: 5.17 cases per 100,000
Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)
- Southwest Region: 4.54 cases per 100,000
- Other Southeast Region – Southern: 3.97 cases per 100,000
CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,310 resident hospitalizations and 303 resident deaths, with sixteen new hospitalizations and one new death reported yesterday. The person who died was a female resident of North Pole in her 60s. Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones.
There are currently 32 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and 11 additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 43 current COVID-related hospitalizations. None of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 3.3%.
TESTING – A total of 1,812,448 tests have been conducted, with 31,325 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.27%.
No new variants of concern were identified the week of March 7-13 which leaves the total number of UK/B.1.1.7 cases at two and Brazil/P.1 cases at five.
VACCINATIONS – Reported to date, there have been 201,687 people who have received at least one dose and 139,766 people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 for a total of 341,492 doses administered in Alaska. For more information, visit the Vaccine Monitoring Dashboard.
TAKE ACTION – Vaccines are being distributed throughout Alaska but we all still need to maintain our COVID-19 protective measures to keep ourselves and others safe and healthy: coronavirus.dhss.alaska.gov
Notes: Reports are received electronically, by phone and by fax. Cases are verified, redundancies are eliminated and then cases are entered into the data system that feeds into Alaska’s Coronavirus Response Hub. When there is a high number of reports being received, this may cause delays in getting reports entered and counted. Personnel continue to focus on the effort to process and count reports and minimize the delay from receipt to posting on the hub.
There is a lag between cases being reported on the DHSS data dashboard and what local communities report. Each case is an individual person even if they are tested multiple times. Total tests are a not a count of unique individuals tested and includes both positive and negative results. The current number of hospitalized patients represents more real-time data compared to the cumulative total hospitalizations. Current hospitalizations are reported for all facilities, not just general acute care and critical access facilities, as is the default on the dashboard. Total number of hospital beds available fluctuate daily as the number of available hospital staff changes. All data reported in real-time, on a daily basis, should be considered preliminary and subject to change. To view more data visit data.coronavirus.alaska.gov; weekly and daily case summaries are archived at dhss.alaska.gov/dph/Epi/id/Pages/COVID-19/communications.aspx#updates.
