Alaska COVID-19 Daily Summary: April 19, 2021

DAILY COVID-19 SUMMARY – April 19, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. April 16-18

OVERVIEW – 449 new cases | 0 deaths | 39 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 40% of Alaskans vaccinated

TAKE ACTION – Choosing to get vaccinated is the single most important action you can take to protect yourself and your community and to reopen our economy. Until more people are vaccinated and case rates are lower in Alaska, take precautions including wearing a mask, staying six feet apart from others, and avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces. Learn more at www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html.

VACCINATIONS – 47.7% of Alaskans age 16 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.  

40% of Alaskans 16 and older have been fully vaccinated. The higher the vaccination rate, the more protected community members are from COVID-19. See below for percentages of all fully vaccinated Alaskans age 16 and older by region:

• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 62.6%
• YK-Delta Region: 56.6%
• Juneau City and Borough: 55.9%
• Northwest Region: 49%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 43.7%
• Southwest Region: 42.9%
• Anchorage Municipality: 42.4%
• Other Interior Region: 41.7%
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 35.3%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 31.7%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 26.3%

For more information about vaccines, visit covidvax.alaska.gov.

CASES – DHSS today announced 449 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska over the past three days. 432 were residents in: Anchorage (129), Wasilla (81), Palmer (47), Fairbanks (39), Soldotna (17), Eagle River (15), Juneau (13), North Pole (13), Kenai (10), Chugiak (7), Homer (7), Delta Junction (6), Ketchikan (5), Petersburg (5), Seward (5), Valdez (5), Wrangell (4), Kodiak (3), Sterling (3), Big Lake (2), Denali Borough (2), Nikiski (2), Sitka (2) and one each in Anchor Point, Bethel, Copper River Census Area, Dillingham Census Area, Houston, Kenai Peninsula Borough North, Kotzebue, North Slope Borough, Utqiaġvik and Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area.

Seventeen new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Fairbanks: seven with purposes under investigation
• Anchorage: one airline pilot, two with purposes under investigation
• Unalaska: two in seafood industry
• Kodiak: one with purpose under investigation
• Mat-Su Borough: one with purpose under investigation
• Wasilla: one with purpose under investigation
• Locations under investigation: two with purposes under investigation

Two resident cases were subtracted from and two nonresident cases were added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 63,675 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,695.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,426 resident hospitalizations and 329 resident deaths, with three new hospitalizations and no new deaths reported over the past three days.

There are currently 37 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and two additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 39 current COVID-related hospitalizations. One of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 3.8%.

TESTING – A total of 2,025,146 tests have been conducted, with 34,155 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 2.83%.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 21.82 cases per 100,000. Seven 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: 47.79 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 20.9 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 20.84 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 19.88 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 18.16 cases per 100,000
• YK-Delta Region: 11.56 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 11.2 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)

• Southwest Region: 9.62 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 9.44 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 5.78 cases per 100,000

Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)

• Northwest Region: 4.48 cases per 100,000

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.