DHSS today announced 150 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 144 were residents in: Anchorage (46), Wasilla (33), Palmer (13), Fairbanks (11), Eagle River (6), Bethel Census Area (5), Delta Junction (5), Chugiak (3), Fairbanks North Star Borough (3), Juneau (3), North Pole (3), Unalaska (3), and one each in Cordova, Denali Borough, Girdwood, Kusilvak Census Area, Nikiski, Nome Census Area, Soldotna, Sutton-Alpine, Tok, and Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area.
Six new nonresident cases were identified yesterday:
- Anchorage: three with purposes under investigation
- Unalaska: two with purpose seafood industry
- Homer: one with purpose other
One resident case and one nonresident case were added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures, bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 57,449 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,468.
ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 16.61 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 two regions are at low alert with minimal transmission.
High (>10 cases/100,000)
- Matanuska-Susitna Region: 36.74 cases per 100,000
- Other Southeast Region – Northern: 27.65 cases per 100,000
- Other Interior Region: 22.44 cases per 100,000
- YK-Delta Region: 19.26 cases per 100,000
- Anchorage Municipality: 15 cases per 100,000
- Fairbanks North Star Borough: 14.04 cases per 100,000
Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)
- Kenai Peninsula Borough: 6.18 cases per 100,000
- Juneau City and Borough: 5.85 cases per 100,000
- Other Southeast Region – Southern: 5.42 cases per 100,000
Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)
- Southwest Region: 4.54 cases per 100,000
- Northwest Region: 3.69 cases per 100,000
CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,270 hospitalizations and 301 deaths, with two new hospitalizations and no new deaths of Alaska residents reported yesterday.
There are currently 33 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and two additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 35 current COVID-related hospitalizations. One of these patients is on a ventilator. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 3.5%.
TESTING – A total of 1,765,014 tests have been conducted, with 30,821 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.28%.
Beginning this week, we will report each Wednesday on known occurrences of variants found through testing Alaskans. To date, the following cases of variants of concern have been identified in Alaska:
UK/B1.1.7 variant:
- Dec. 20, 2020, in Anchorage, acquired through travel
- Jan. 13, 2021 in Anchorage, acquired through travel
Brazil/P.1 variant:
- Feb. 8, 2021 in Anchorage, acquired in the community
- Feb. 8, 2021 in Anchorage, secondary acquisition
- Feb. 15, 2021 in Anchorage, acquisition under investigation
- Feb. 15, 2021 in Eagle River, secondary acquisition
- Feb. 15, 2021 in Eagle River, acquired in the community
VACCINATIONS – Reported to date, there have been 174,028 people who have received at least one dose and 122,823 people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 for a total of 296,094 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.
