Alaska COVID-19 Case Count Summary: March 1, 2021

CASE COUNT SUMMARY, Monday, March 1, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Feb. 26-28

DHSS today announced ten deaths of Alaska residents and 385 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska over the past three days. 349 were residents in: Anchorage (95), Wasilla (83), Palmer (36), Fairbanks (30), Petersburg (27), Chugiak (9), Juneau (7), Bethel Census Area (6), Eagle River (6), Girdwood (5), Cordova (4), Kenai (4), Kusilvak Census Area (4), North Pole (4), Soldotna (4), Sutton-Alpine (4), Delta Junction (3), Homer (3), Tok (2), Unalaska (2), and one each in Anchor Point, Big Lake, Haines, Healy, Houston, Kodiak, Nikiski, Nome Census Area, Sitka, Southeast Fairbanks Census Area and Wrangell.

36 new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Unalaska: eight in seafood industry, one with purpose under investigation
• Kodiak: five in seafood industry
• Prudhoe Bay: five with in North Slope oil industry
• Anchorage: two with purposes under investigation, one in 'other industry'
• Delta Junction: three in mining industry
• Palmer: two with purposes under investigation
• Cordova: one with purpose under investigation
• Ketchikan: one with purpose under investigation
• Wasilla: one with purpose under investigation
• Locations under investigation: five in North Slope oil, one with purpose under investigation

One resident case and two nonresident cases were added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 56,339 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,342.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 15.7 cases per 100,000. Most 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)

• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 35.95 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 25.9 cases per 100,000
• YK-Delta Region: 21.46 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 16.62 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 16.6 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 14.56 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 12.29 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)

• Juneau City and Borough: 8.54 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 5.21 cases per 100,000
• Southwest Region: 5.08 cases per 100,000

Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)

• Northwest Region: 3.95 cases per 100,000

CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,240 resident hospitalizations and 297 resident deaths, with two new hospitalizations and ten new deaths reported over the past three days. Our thoughts are with the family and loved ones of the individuals who died.

One death was recent:

• A male Anchorage resident in his 70s

Nine deaths were identified through death certificate review:

• A male Northwest Arctic Borough resident in his 70s
• A male Fairbanks resident 80 years or older
• A female Fairbanks resident in her 70s
• A female North Pole resident in her 70s
• A female Bethel Census Area resident in her 70s
• A female Anchorage resident 80 years or older
• A male Anchorage resident in his 70s
• A female Anchorage resident in her 40s
• A female Wasilla resident 80 years or older

There are currently 22 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and three additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 25 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Five of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 2.3%.

TESTING – A total of 1,698,031 tests have been conducted, with 34,922 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.16%.

VACCINATIONS – Reported to date, there have been 155,951 people who have received at least one dose and 103,668 people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 for a total of 258,863 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.