DHSS today announced one death and 116 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 106 were residents in: Anchorage (32), Bethel Census Area (21), Wasilla (20), Palmer (9), Eagle River (5), Bethel (3), Fairbanks (3), Kusilvak Census Area (2), Sterling (2), and one each in Big Lake, Chugiak, Delta Junction, Homer, Juneau, Kotzebue, Nome Census Area, Bristol Bay plus Lake and Peninsula, and Unalaska.
Ten new nonresident cases were identified in:
- Aleutians East Borough: four in seafood industry
- Unalaska: one with purpose under investigation
- Anchorage: two with purpose under investigation
- North Slope Borough: two in North Slope oil industry
- Location under investigation: one with purpose under investigation
Nine resident cases were added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 53,809 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,084.
ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 18.86 cases per 100,000. Most regions of Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission. Two regions are at intermediate alert status with moderate transmission and one region is at low alert with minimal transmission.
High (>10 cases/100,000)
- YK-Delta Region: 93.12 cases per 100,000
- Matanuska-Susitna Region: 29.06 cases per 100,000
- Other Interior Region: 27.11 cases per 100,000
- Southwest Region: 23.24 cases per 100,000
- Anchorage Municipality: 15.42 cases per 100,000
- Fairbanks North Star Borough: 12.36 cases per 100,000
- Juneau City and Borough: 12.06 cases per 100,000
- Other Southeast Region – Southern: 10.03 cases per 100,000
Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)
- Northwest Region: 7.03 cases per 100,000
- Kenai Peninsula Borough: 6.36 cases per 100,000
Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)
- Other Southeast Region – Northern: 4.19 cases per 100,000
CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,191 hospitalizations and 278 deaths, with four new hospitalizations and one death reported. The death reported today is a male Wasilla resident in his 60s who died out of state. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones.
There are currently 34 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and one additional patient who is considered a person under investigation (PUI) for a total of 35 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Six of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 1.5%.
TESTING – A total of 1,561,249 tests have been conducted, with 31,205 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.52%.
VACCINATIONS – Reported to date, there have been 110,626 dose #1 and 45,626 dose #2 COVID-19 vaccinations given for a total of 156,252 doses administered in Alaska. For more information, visit the Vaccine Monitoring Dashboard.
ALASKA PIONEER HOME UPDATE – Since the last update on Feb. 2, no new cases of COVID-19 have been identified at any of the six Pioneer Homes. All homes continue to conduct regular testing of residents and staff. Fairbanks and Juneau are holding second-dose vaccine clinics this week. Vaccination rates across all the homes range from 83-93% for residents and 35-75% for staff.
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.
