Alaska COVID-19 Daily Summary: May 18, 2021

COVID-19 DAILY SUMMARY – May 18, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. May 17

OVERVIEW – 56 new cases | 4 deaths | 25 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 47.4% 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. Learn more about the CDC’s recommendations for fully vaccinated people at www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html.

VACCINATIONS – 53.1% of Alaskans age 16 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

47.4% 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: 68.6%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 66.4%
• YK-Delta Region: 63.2%
• Northwest Region: 52.1%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 51.2%
• Southwest Region: 50.9%
• Anchorage Region: 50%
• Other Interior Region: 49.4%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 40.9%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 40.2%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 32.5%

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

Please note, the data team continues to work to resolve issues on the vaccine dashboard that result in mismatched data between the gauges and counts and the data referenced on the census area and borough map. This may result in unexpected fluctuations from day-to-day, but we anticipate resolution by the end of this week.

CASES – DHSS today announced 4 new deaths of Alaska residents and 56 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 52 were residents in:  Anchorage (18), Ketchikan (6), Wasilla (4), Big Lake (3), Fairbanks (3), Juneau (3), Palmer (3), Eagle River (2), and one each in Bethel, Bethel Census Area, Homer, Kenai, Kodiak, Nome, North Pole, Seward, Soldotna, and Yakutat plus Hoonah-Angoon.

Four new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Fairbanks: one with purpose under investigation
• Ketchikan: one with purpose under investigation
• Anchorage: one in oil industry and one with purpose under investigation

One resident case was added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 66,867 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,790.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,545 resident hospitalizations and 362 resident deaths, with three new hospitalizations and four new resident deaths reported. Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the individuals who died.

Four recent deaths were identified:

• Male Wasilla resident in his 60s
• Female Wasilla resident in her 60s
• Female Southeast Fairbanks Census Area resident in her 50s
• Male Anchorage resident in his 70s

There are currently 25 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and two additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 27 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Three of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 2.3%.

TESTING – A total of 2,207,366 tests have been conducted, with 22,352 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 1.69%.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 10.6 cases per 100,000. Four regions of Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission; five regions are at intermediate alert status with moderate transmission; and two regions are at low alert with minimal transmission.

High (>10 cases/100,000)

• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 53.84 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 14.75 cases per 100,000
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 13.65 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 13.6 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)

• Anchorage Municipality: 8.11 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 7.64 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 7.42 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 7 cases per 100,000
• YK-Delta Region: 6.6 cases per 100,000

Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)

• Northwest Region: 4.48 cases per 100,000
• Southwest Region: 2.67 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.