Alaska COVID-19 Case Count Summary: Jan. 28, 2021

CASE COUNT SUMMARY, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021

DHSS today announced one death of an Alaska resident and 184 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 178 were residents in: Anchorage (44), Bethel Census Area (38), Fairbanks (19), Wasilla (13), Bethel (8), Aleutians East Borough (6), Kusilvak Census Area (6), North Pole (6), Unalaska (5), Dillingham Census Area (4), Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (4), Eagle River (3), Homer (3), Kenai (2), Ketchikan (2), Seward (2), and one each in Big Lake, Chugiak, Cordova, Douglas, Fairbanks North Star Borough, Juneau, Kodiak, North Slope Borough, Sitka, Soldotna, Sutton-Alpine, Willow, and Yakutat/Hoonah-Angoon.

Six new nonresident cases were identified yesterday in:

• Unalaska: two in seafood industry, one with purpose under investigation
• Aleutians East Borough: one in seafood industry
• Anchorage: one with purpose under investigation
• Fairbanks: one with purpose under investigation

Twenty-one resident cases and two nonresident cases were added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 52,150 and the total number of nonresident cases to 1,727.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 24.56 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 one region is at low alert with minimal transmission.

High (>10 cases/100,000)

• YK-Delta Region: 147.96 cases per 100,000
• Southwest Region: 35.1 cases per 100,000
• Northwest Region: 33.85 cases per 100,000
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 25.77 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 21.67 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 20.72 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 19.7 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)

• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 9.91 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 9.83 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 5.24 cases per 100,000

Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)

• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 3.23 cases per 100,000

CASES: SEX & AGES – Of the 178 Alaska residents, 86 are male and 92 are female. 18 are under the age of 10; 36 are aged 10-19; 37 are aged 20-29; 25 are aged 30-39; 21 are aged 40-49; 22 are aged 50-59; 12 are aged 60-69; four are aged 70-79 and three are aged 80 or older.

CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,177 hospitalizations and 260 deaths, with one new hospitalization and one recent death reported yesterday. The individual who died was a female North Pole resident in her 40s. Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones.

There are currently 41 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and one additional patient who is considered a person under investigation (PUI) for a total of 42 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Five of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 4.2%.

TESTING – A total of 1,479,849 tests have been conducted, with 27,516 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.87%.

VACCINATIONS – Reported to date, there have been 87,707 dose #1 and 22,692 dose #2 COVID-19 vaccinations given for a total of 110,400 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

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 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. 27. 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.