Alaska COVID-19 Case Count Summary: March 9, 2021

CASE COUNT SUMMARY, Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. March 8

DHSS today announced 91 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 90 were residents in: Anchorage (23), Wasilla (22), Bethel Census Area (11), Fairbanks (5), Palmer (5), Chugiak (3), Copper River Census Area (3), Bethel (2), Eagle River (2), Metlakatla (2), Petersburg (2), Utqiaġvik (2), Willow (2) and one each in Homer, Juneau, Kenai, North Pole, Soldotna and Southeast Fairbanks Census Area.

One new nonresident case was identified yesterday in Kotzebue with a purpose under investigation.

Two resident cases were subtracted from and one nonresident case was added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures, bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 57,304 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,461.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 16.89 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 two regions are at low alert with minimal transmission.

High (>10 cases/100,000)

• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 37.21 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 31.5 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 19.98 cases per 100,000
• YK-Delta Region: 19.81 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 15 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 14.7 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)

• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 8.31 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 6.3 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 5.85 cases per 100,000

Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)

• Northwest Region: 4.21 cases per 100,000
• Southwest Region: 3.74 cases per 100,000

CASES: HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,268 hospitalizations and 301 deaths, with ten new hospitalizations and no new deaths of Alaska residents reported yesterday.

There are currently 32 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and five additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 37 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Two of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 3.5%.

TESTING – A total of 1,754,916 tests have been conducted, with 30,950 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.11%.

VACCINATIONS – Reported to date, there have been 171,749 people who have received at least one dose and 119,631 people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 for a total of 290,624 doses administered in Alaska. For more information, visit covidvax.alaska.gov.

ALASKA PIONEER HOMES UPDATE – As of March 9, there are currently no positive cases of COVID-19 at any of the six Pioneer Homes. Homes continue to regularly test patients and staff to monitor for illness and have visitation plans in place that are specific to the conditions in their communities. After today, weekly updates will no longer be provided in this case count summary unless new significant outbreaks occur.

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.