On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Social Services announced 649 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska over the past four days. 619 were residents in: Anchorage (240), Wasilla (145), Fairbanks (57), Palmer (31), Eagle River (17), Bethel Census Area (13), Valdez (13), North Pole (12), Chugiak (10), Delta Junction (9), Soldotna (8), Juneau (7), Willow (6), Kodiak (4), Seward (4), Sitka (4), Talkeetna (4), Big Lake (3), Copper River Census Area (3), Kenai (3), Ketchikan (3), Sterling (3), Utqiaġvik (3), Healy (2), Houston (2), Kenai Peninsula Borough North (2), and one each in Aleutians West Borough, Bethel, Kenai Peninsula Borough South, Nikiski, Nome, Nome Census Area, North Slope Borough, Northwest Arctic Borough, Prince of Wales-Hyder, Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, and Sutton-Alpine.
Thirty new nonresident cases were identified in:
- Anchorage: nine with purposes under investigation and one in seafood industry
- North Slope: eight in North Slope oil industry
- Kodiak: two in seafood industry
- Fairbanks: one with purpose under investigation
- Valdez: one with purpose under investigation
- Locations under investigation: four with purposes under investigation, three in North Slope oil industry and one in seafood industry
Four resident cases were added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 60,333 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,568.
ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 19.93 cases per 100,000. Five 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: 42.14 cases per 100,000
- Other Interior Region: 38.73 cases per 100,000
- YK-Delta Region: 26.69 cases per 100,000
- Anchorage Municipality: 21.65 cases per 100,000
- Fairbanks North Star Borough: 12.87 cases per 100,000
Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)
- Kenai Peninsula Borough: 6.18 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 – Northern: 4.2 cases per 100,000
- Other Southeast Region – Southern: 3.25 cases per 100,000
- Juneau City and Borough: 3.15 cases per 100,000
CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,350 resident hospitalizations and 309 resident deaths, with five new hospitalizations and no new deaths reported over the past three days.
There are currently 33 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and one additional patient who is considered a person under investigation (PUI) for a total of 34 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Three of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 3.5%.
TESTING – A total of 1,896,375 tests have been conducted, with 30,114 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.9%.
VACCINATIONS – Reported to date, there have been 231,591 people who have received at least one dose and 160,504 people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 for a total of 392,240 doses administered in Alaska. For more information, visit the Vaccine Monitoring Dashboard.
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.