Alaska COVID-19 Daily Summary: May 20, 2021

COVID-19 DAILY SUMMARY – May 20, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. May 19

OVERVIEW – 78 new cases | 0 deaths | 20 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: intermediate | 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.

NOTE:  Vaccination rate data will not be updated on today’s Alaska COVID-19 Information Hub dashboard.  The rates below are current as of May 17, 2021. 

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 78 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 78 were residents in:  Anchorage (19), Fairbanks (12), Ketchikan (9), Hooper Bay (7), Wasilla (7), Delta Junction (3), Homer (3), Metlakatla (3), Eagle River (2), Healy (2), North Pole (2), Palmer (2), and one each in Big Lake, Kenai, Kodiak, Salcha, Seward, Sterling, Willow.  

Two resident cases were added and one nonresident case was subtracted from the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 67,043 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,792.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,552 resident hospitalizations and 362 resident deaths, with four new hospitalizations and no new resident deaths reported.   

There are currently 20 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and three additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 23 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Two of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 1.8%.

TESTING – A total of 2,212,533 tests have been conducted, with 21,844 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 1.69%.

Variants of concern situation summary

B.1.1.7 (52 added since last report)

• Seeing this variant widely in Alaska (and the nation)
• Anch, Mat-Su, Kenai Peninsula, Fairbanks/Interior, Southeast
• (Northern case was associated with non-Northern region exposure)
• Continue to see new importations (e.g., cases associated with travel out of state)
• Also seeing some instances of secondary and community spread

P.1 (3 added since last report)

• One FAI (out of state travel)
• One Anchorage (out of state travel)
• One Palmer (no obvious travel; doing a bit more investigation)

B.1.351 (1 added since last report)

• JNU (out of state travel)

 ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is intermediate at 9.95 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: 57.82 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 16.91 cases per 100,000
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 11.85 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 11.54 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)

• YK-Delta Region: 8.53 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 7.39 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 7.34 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 6.74 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 6.65 cases per 100,000

Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)

• Northwest Region: 3.69 cases per 100,000
• Southwest Region: 3.48 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.