Alaska COVID-19 Case Count Summary: Feb. 22, 2021

CASE COUNT SUMMARY, Monday, Feb. 22, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Feb. 19-21

DHSS today announced one death of an Alaska resident and 346 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska over the past three days. 311 were residents in: Anchorage (74), Wasilla (65), Fairbanks (32), Palmer (22), Juneau (18), Bethel Census Area (16), North Pole (11), Eagle River (7), Ketchikan (7), Petersburg (7), Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (7), Kusilvak Census Area (6), Bethel (4), Chugiak (4), Denali Borough (3), Dillingham (3), Girdwood (3), Soldotna (3), Cordova (2), Kenai (2), Matanuska-Susitna Borough (2), Northwest Arctic Borough (2), Sitka (2), and one each in Big Lake, Copper River Census Area, Fairbanks North Star Borough, Homer, Hooper Bay, Seward, Utqiaġvik, Wrangell and Yakutat plus Hoonah-Angoon.

35 new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Unalaska: 24 in seafood industry
• Aleutians East Borough: three in seafood industry
• Anchorage: one in seafood industry, two with purposes under investigation
• Fairbanks: two with purposes under investigation
• Prudhoe Bay: one in North Slope oil industry
• Locations under investigation: two with purposes under investigation

Two resident cases were subtracted from and four nonresident cases were added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 55,507 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,246.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 16.34 cases per 100,000. Most regions of Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission. Four regions are at intermediate alert status with moderate transmission.

High (>10 cases/100,000)

• YK-Delta Region: 38.28 cases per 100,000
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 35.16 cases per 100,000
• Southwest Region: 17.3 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 14.69 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 13.8 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 12.89 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 11.88 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)

• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 7.68 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 7.15 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 5.51 cases per 100,000
• Northwest Region: 5.47 cases per 100,000

CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,213 resident hospitalizations and 287 resident deaths, with six new hospitalizations and one new death reported over the past three days. The individual who died was a female Anchorage resident in her 70s. Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones.

There are currently 35 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and four additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 39 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Five of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 2.4%.

TESTING – A total of 1,648,785 tests have been conducted, with 31,842 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.08%.

VACCINATIONS – Reported to date, there have been 142,531 dose #1 and 87,332 dose #2 COVID-19 vaccinations given for a total of 229,108 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.