Alaska COVID-19 Daily Summary: May 14, 2021

COVID-19 DAILY SUMMARY – May 14, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. May 13

OVERVIEW – 109 new cases | 0 deaths | 32 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 46.9% of Alaskans vaccinated

VACCINATIONS – 52.6% of Alaskans age 16 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

46.9% 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:

• Juneau Region: 68%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 65.5%
• YK-Delta Region: 62.5%
• Northwest Region: 51.7%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 50.8%
• Southwest Region: 49.8%
• Anchorage Region: 49.7%
• Other Interior Region: 48.8%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 40.5%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 39.8%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 32.1%

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

Please note, the data team is currently working to resolve an issue on the vaccine dashboard that results in the percentage gauge and count of Alaskans who have received their first dose showing slightly inflated data due to duplicate records being included. The data referenced for each census area and borough on the map is accurate.

CASES – DHSS today announced 109 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 108 were residents in: Ketchikan (25), Anchorage (22), Wasilla (14), Fairbanks (8), Yakutat plus Hoonah-Angoon (7), Bethel Census Area (5), Eagle River (4), Homer (3), Juneau (3), Palmer (3), Hooper Bay (2), Kenai (2), Kusilvak Census Area (2), North Pole (2), Soldotna (2), and one each in Anchor Point, Metlakatla, Northwest Arctic Borough and a location under investigation.

One new nonresident case was identified yesterday with both location and purpose under investigation.

One resident case and three nonresident cases were added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 66,683 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,781.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,536 resident hospitalizations and 347 resident deaths, with four new hospitalizations and no new deaths reported yesterday.  

There are currently 32 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and four additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 36 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Three of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 3%.

TESTING – A total of 2,183,175 tests have been conducted, with 25,277 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 1.54%. dhss.alaska.gov/dph/Epi/id/Pages/COVID-19/testing.aspx

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 12.31 cases per 100,000. Four regions of Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission. Six regions are at intermediate alert status with moderate transmission and one region is at low alert with minimal transmission. dhss.alaska.gov/dph/Epi/id/Pages/COVID-19/alertlevels.aspx

High (>10 cases/100,000)

• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 49.51 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 20.14 cases per 100,000
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 16.77 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 10.45 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)

• Juneau City and Borough: 9.22 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 8.97 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 8.48 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 7.7 cases per 100,000
• YK-Delta Region: 7.15 cases per 100,000
• Northwest Region: 6.32 cases per 100,000

Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)

• Southwest Region: 2.94 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.