Alaska COVID-19 Case Count Summary: Feb. 18, 2021

Alaska COVID-19 Case Count

CASE COUNT SUMMARY, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Feb. 17

DHSS today announced 213 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 209 were residents in: Wasilla (57), Anchorage (47), Palmer (20), Fairbanks (16), Bethel Census Area (15), Ketchikan (10), Eagle River (9), North Pole (6), Big Lake (4), Kenai (3), Kusilvak Census Area (3), Chugiak (2), Fairbanks North Star Borough (2), Seward (2), Soldotna (2), Sutton-Alpine (2) and one each in Girdwood, Healy, Nikiski, Nome Census Area, Petersburg, Sitka, Tok, Utqiaġvik and Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area.

Four new nonresident cases were identified yesterday in the Aleutians East Borough, all in the seafood industry.

One resident case was added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures, bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 55,009 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,182.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 17.12 cases per 100,000. Many regions of Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission. Two regions are at intermediate alert status with moderate transmission and two regions are at low alert with minimal transmission.

High (>10 cases/100,000)

  • YK-Delta Region: 49.41 cases per 100,000
  • Matanuska-Susitna Region: 36.57 cases per 100,000
  • Southwest Region: 21.26 cases per 100,000
  • Other Interior Region: 19.8 cases per 100,000
  • Anchorage Municipality: 14.07 cases per 100,000
  • Other Southeast Region - Southern: 12.9 cases per 100,000
  • Fairbanks North Star Borough: 11.77 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)

  • Kenai Peninsula Borough: 6.36 cases per 100,000
  • Northwest Region: 5.99 cases per 100,000

Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)

  • Juneau City and Borough: 4.69 cases per 100,000
  • Other Southeast Region - Northern: 2.79 cases per 100,000

CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,207 hospitalizations and 286 deaths, with five new hospitalizations and no new deaths reported yesterday.

There are currently 33 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and four additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 37 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Three of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 3.4%.

TESTING – A total of 1,619,459 tests have been conducted, with 24,884 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.27%.

VACCINATIONS – Reported to date, there have been 133,221 dose #1 and 73,461 dose #2 COVID-19 vaccinations given for a total of 206,682 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.