DHSS today announced 210 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 207 were residents in: Anchorage (100), Wasilla (35), Bethel Census Area (24), Palmer (11), Chugiak (6), Eagle River (6), North Pole (4), Delta Junction (3), Juneau (3), Kenai (3), Fairbanks (2) and one each in Bethel, Big Lake, Healy, Houston, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Soldotna, Unalaska, Valdez, Willow and Wrangell.
Three new nonresident cases were identified yesterday in:
- Anchorage: one with purpose under investigation
- Fairbanks: one in ‘other industry’
- Location under investigation: one with purpose under investigation
Eleven resident cases were added to and one nonresident case was subtracted from the dashboard due to data verification procedures, bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 59,383 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,530.
ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 18.4 cases per 100,000. Five 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)
- YK-Delta Region: 39.63 cases per 100,000
- Matanuska-Susitna Region: 38.48 cases per 100,000
- Other Interior Region: 36.58 cases per 100,000
- Anchorage Municipality: 18.56 cases per 100,000
- Fairbanks North Star Borough: 11.25 cases per 100,000
Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)
- Kenai Peninsula Borough: 5.94 cases per 100,000
- Other Southeast Region – Northern: 5.6 cases per 100,000
- Southwest Region: 5.35 cases per 100,000
- Northwest Region: 5 cases per 100,000
Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)
- Other Southeast Region – Southern: 4.34 cases per 100,000
- Juneau City and Borough: 3.6 cases per 100,000
CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,336 hospitalizations and 308 deaths, with seven new hospitalizations and no deaths of Alaska residents reported yesterday.
There are currently 36 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and one additional patient who is considered a person under investigation (PUI) for a total of 37 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Two of these patients are on a ventilator. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 3.6%.
TESTING – A total of 1,857,100 tests have been conducted, with 28,840 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.68%.
No new variants of concern were identified the week of March 14 – 20 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 223,457 people who have received at least one dose and 152,472 people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 for a total of 377,323 doses administered in Alaska. For more information, visit covidvax.alaska.gov.
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.
