DHSS today announced three deaths of Alaska residents and 157 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 152 were residents in: Anchorage (60), Wasilla (19), Bethel Census Area (15), Fairbanks (11), Palmer (7), North Pole (6), Chugiak (5), Southeast Fairbanks Census Area (4), Delta Junction (3), Seward (3), Copper River Census Area (2), Eagle River (2), Tok (2), Willow (2) and one each in Aleutians East Borough, Anchor Point, Big Lake, Fairbanks North Star Borough, Healy, Juneau, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Salcha, Valdez and Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area.
Five new nonresident cases were identified yesterday in:
- Anchorage: two with purposes under investigation
- Unalaska: two in seafood industry
- Fairbanks: one with purpose under investigation
One nonresident case was added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures, bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 58,580 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,509.
ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 17.58 cases per 100,000. Many regions of Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission. Three regions are at intermediate alert status with moderate transmission and three regions are at low alert with minimal transmission.
High (>10 cases/100,000)
- Matanuska-Susitna Region: 38.61 cases per 100,000
- Other Interior Region: 31.35 cases per 100,000
- YK-Delta Region: 29.17 cases per 100,000
- Anchorage Municipality: 16.93 cases per 100,000
- Fairbanks North Star Borough: 12.87 cases per 100,000
Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)
- Other Southeast Region – Northern: 8.05 cases per 100,000
- Kenai Peninsula Borough: 6.91 cases per 100,000
- Juneau City and Borough: 5.17 cases per 100,000
Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)
- Northwest Region: 4.74 cases per 100,000
- Southwest Region: 3.74 cases per 100,000
- Other Southeast Region – Southern: 3.61 cases per 100,000
CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,312 hospitalizations and 306 deaths, with two new hospitalizations and three deaths of Alaska residents reported yesterday. Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the individuals who died.
All three deaths were identified through death certificate review:
- A male Fairbanks resident who was 80 years or older
- A female Bethel Census Area resident who was 80 years or older
- A male Anchorage resident who was 80 years or older
There are currently 36 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and three additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 39 current COVID-related hospitalizations. One of these patients is on a ventilator. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 3.6%.
TESTING – A total of 1,820,986 tests have been conducted, with 32,019 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.34%.
VACCINATIONS – Reported to date, there have been 204,918 people who have received at least one dose and 141,464 people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 for a total of 346,309 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.
