Alaska COVID-19 Case Count Summary: Dec. 9, 2020

CASE COUNT SUMMARY, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020

DHSS today announced four new Alaska resident deaths and 577 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 573 were residents in: Anchorage (192), Fairbanks (59), Wasilla (58), Kusilvak Census Area (39), Kodiak (31), Utqiaġvik (28), Palmer (23), Eagle River (18), North Pole (17), Bethel (15), Soldotna (13), Bethel Census Area (11), Kenai (10), Homer (9), Delta Junction (6), Kenai Peninsula Borough North (6), Nikiski (4), Big Lake (3), Juneau (3), North Slope Borough (3), Chugiak (2), Denali Borough (2), Healy (2), Hooper Bay (2), Ketchikan (2), Northwest Arctic Borough (2), Seward (2), Sterling (2), Unknown locations (2), and one each in Anchor Point, Cordova, Kotzebue, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, Willow, and Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area.  

Four new nonresident cases were identified yesterday:    

• Two in Unalaska with purpose under investigation
• One in Anchorage with purpose under investigation
• One with both location and purpose under investigation

Eleven resident cases and three nonresident cases were added to the dashboard through data verification procedures. This brings the total number of Alaska resident cases to 37,342 and the total number of nonresident cases to 1,365.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 88.09 cases per 100,000. All regions in Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission occurring.

High (>10 cases/100,000)

• YK-Delta Region: 178.36 cases per 100,000
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 162.33 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 100.6 cases per 100,000
• Southwest Region: 86.52 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 85.61 cases per 100,000
• Northwest Region: 62.23 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 49.01 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 46 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 23.75 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 21.66 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 15.41 cases per 100,000

CASES: SEX & AGES – Of the 573 Alaska residents, 331 are male and 238 are female and four are unknown. 40 are under the age of 10; 75 are aged 10-19; 124 are aged 20-29; 111 are aged 30-39; 77 are aged 40-49; 79 are aged 50-59; 40 are aged 60-69; 20 are aged 70-79 and seven are aged 80 or older.

CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 831 hospitalizations and 149 deaths, with twenty new hospitalizations and four deaths reported yesterday.  Our thoughts are with their families and loved ones.

All four deaths were recent:  

• an Anchorage female in her 70s
• a Yakutat and Hoonah-Angoon male his 80s
• a Kenai male in his 70s, and
• a Soldotna male in his 80s. 

There are currently 152 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and 13 additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 165 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Nineteen of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 14.8%.

TESTING – A total of 1,099,555 tests have been conducted, with 28,212 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 6.63%. 

DHSS COVID-19 WEBSITE UPDATE – The DHSS COVID-19 website has been redesigned with an eye to making the website more clear and easier to navigate. Can’t find what you need? Use the Google search bar at the bottom of each page. http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/Epi/id/Pages/COVID-19/

TAKE ACTION to protect yourself and others: coronavirus.dhss.alaska.gov/#takeaction

Notes: Cases reported to the Section of Epidemiology are increasing. 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. Because of the number of reports being received, there have been delays in getting reports entered and counted. Extra personnel continue to focus on the effort to process and count reports and minimize the delay from receipt to posting on the Hub. Daily case counts seem likely to remain at this level or higher for the near future.

This report reflects data from 12 a.m. until 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 8 that posted at noon today on the Alaska Coronavirus Response 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.