DHSS today announced one new Alaska resident death and 933 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 908 were residents in: Anchorage (298), Wasilla (177), Fairbanks (89), Bethel Census Area (39), Kenai (36), Palmer (35), North Pole (34), Soldotna (33), Kusilvak Census Area (24), Eagle River (22), Kodiak (19), Bethel (12), Fairbanks North Star Borough (12), Delta Junction (11), Chugiak (6), Big Lake (5), Sitka (5), Sterling (5), Utqiaġvik (5), Valdez-Cordova Census Area (5), Homer (4), Juneau (4), Ketchikan (4), Nikiski (4), Dillingham (2), Craig(2), Seward (2) and one each in Bristol Bay/Lake & Peninsula, Chevak, Cordova, Dillingham Census Area, Ester, Girdwood, Healy, Kenai Peninsula Borough North, Kotzebue, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Metlakatla, Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, Valdez and Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area.
25 new nonresident cases were identified yesterday:
- Fairbanks: four with purposes “other” and three with purposes under investigation
- Anchorage: one with purpose “other” and two with purposes under investigation
- Utqiaġvik: one with purpose under investigation
- Unalaska: one with purpose under investigation
- Kenai: one with purpose under investigation
- North Slope Borough: two with purposes in North Slope oil
- Location under investigation: 10 with purposes under investigation
Fourteen resident cases were added to the dashboard and one nonresident case was subtracted through data verification procedures. This brings the total number of Alaska resident cases to 34,963 and the total number of nonresident cases to 1,308.
ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 87.33 cases per 100,000. All regions in Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission occurring.
High (>10 cases/100,000)
- YK-Delta Region: 174.29 cases per 100,000
- Matanuska-Susitna Region: 142.94 cases per 100,000
- Kenai Peninsula Borough: 105.37 cases per 100,000
- Anchorage Municipality: 93.42 cases per 100,000
- Southwest Region: 66.00 cases per 100,000
- Northwest Region: 60.41 cases per 100,000
- Other Interior Region: 53.92 cases per 100,000
- Fairbanks North Star Borough: 41.86 cases per 100,000
- Other Southeast Region – Northern: 28.29 cases per 100,000
- Juneau City and Borough: 25.68 cases per 100,000
- Other Southeast Region – Southern: 14.33 cases per 100,000
CASES: SEX & AGES – Of the 908 Alaska residents, 555 are male and 348 are female and five are unknown. 40 are under the age of 10; 110 are aged 10-19; 185 are aged 20-29; 187 are aged 30-39; 130 are aged 40-49; 122 are aged 50-59; 85 are aged 60-69; 30 are aged 70-79 and 19 are aged 80 or older.
CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 784 hospitalizations and 142 deaths, with five new hospitalizations and one new death reported yesterday. The person who died was a female Anchorage resident in her 70s. Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones.
There are currently 150 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and 14 additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 164 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Twenty-four of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 16.1%.
TESTING – A total of 1,067,231 tests have been conducted, with 34,461 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 7.24%.
Notes: Cases reported to the Section of Epidemiology are increasing. 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. Because of the number of reports being received, it may take a day or two after receipt to get a report entered and counted. Extra personnel continue to focus on the effort to process and count reports and minimize the delay from receipt to posting on the Hub. Daily case counts seem likely to remain at this level or higher for the near future.
This report reflects data from 12 a.m. until 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 4 that posted at noon today on the Alaska Coronavirus Response 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.
