Alaska COVID-19 Case Count Summary: Jan. 26, 2021

CASE COUNT SUMMARY, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021

DHSS today announced one death of an Alaska resident and 89 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 86 were residents in: Anchorage (20), Wasilla (12), Bethel Census Area (11), Fairbanks (7), Juneau (5), Kusilvak Census Area (5), Bethel (4), Palmer (4), Eagle River (3), Sutton-Alpine (2), Unalaska (2) and one each in Big Lake, Chugiak, Cordova, Haines, Homer, Kotzebue, Nome Census Area, North Pole, Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Seward and Soldotna.

Three new nonresident cases were identified yesterday in Unalaska, all in the seafood industry.

One resident case was subtracted from the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 51,778 and the total number of nonresident cases to 1,709.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 27.22 cases per 100,000. Most regions of Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission. One region is at intermediate alert status with moderate transmission and one region is in low alert with minimal transmission.

High (>10 cases/100,000)

• YK-Delta Region: 147.96 cases per 100,000
• Northwest Region: 44.27 cases per 100,000
• Southwest Region: 33.37 cases per 100,000
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 27.72 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 26.67 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 23.15 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 22.22 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 11.99 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 10.5 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)

• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 8.03 cases per 100,000

Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)

• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 4.66 cases per 100,000

CASES: SEX & AGES – Of the 86 Alaska residents, 47 are male, 38 are female and one is unknown. 11 are under the age of 10; nine are aged 10-19; 13 are aged 20-29; 17 are aged 30-39; six are aged 40-49; nine are aged 50-59; 12 are aged 60-69; seven are aged 70-79 and two  are aged 80 or older.

CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,170 hospitalizations and 258 deaths, with nine new hospitalizations and one recent death reported yesterday. The individual who died was a male Northwest Arctic Borough resident in his 60s. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones.

There are currently 56 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and one additional patient who is considered a person under investigation (PUI) for a total of 57 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Five of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 6.3%.

TESTING – A total of 1,460,189 tests have been conducted, with 28,376 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 3.07%.

VACCINATIONS – Reported to date, there have been 82,468 dose #1 and 19,117 dose #2 COVID-19 vaccinations given for a total of 101,585 doses administered in Alaska. For more information, visit the Vaccine Monitoring Dashboard.

ALASKA PIONEER HOME UPDATE – Since the last update on Jan. 19, the Juneau Pioneer Home and the Alaska Veterans and Pioneers Home in Palmer each identified one staff member as positive for COVID-19. Both cases are currently active and their close contacts are being tested regularly. The individuals are off work and isolating. This is the first case for the Juneau Pioneer Home.

All six Pioneer Homes have had at least one vaccination clinic with 73-93% resident vaccination rates and no serious adverse effects. As homes complete their second doses of the vaccine, they are working on visitation plans using the new visitation guidelines for residential facilities available online at dhss.alaska.gov/dph/Epi/id/SiteAssets/Pages/HumanCoV/VisitationGuidelines_ResidentialCongregateFacilities.pdf

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

CHANGES COMING TO DATA HUB – Watch for a new and improved layout of the Alaska Coronavirus Response Hub which will bring users a cleaner layout and new dashboard elements. Visit the data hub for a preview at http://data.coronavirus.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. Extra personnel continue to focus on the effort to process and count reports and minimize the delay from receipt to posting on the hub. 

This report reflects data from 12 a.m. until 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 25. 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.