Alaska COVID-19 Daily Summary: May 27, 2021

COVID-19 DAILY SUMMARY – May 27, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. May 26

OVERVIEW – 45 new cases | 0 deaths | 19 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: intermediate | 46% 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.

VACCINE DASHBOARD CHANGES  – Some changes were made this week to the vaccine dashboard. The dashboard now includes vaccination rates for Alaskans 12 years or older, not just 16+. This reflects the recent emergency use authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 12 years of age or older, which means there are now more Alaskans eligible to be vaccinated. Additional dashboard work has also been done to de-duplicate vaccine data.

VACCINATIONS – 52% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

46% of Alaskans 12 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 12 and older by region:

• Juneau Region: 66%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 62%
• YK-Delta Region: 59%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 52%
• Southwest Region: 52%
• Northwest Region: 49%
• Anchorage Region: 48%
• Other Interior Region: 48%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 40%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 39%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 31%

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

CASES – DHSS today announced no new deaths of Alaska residents and 45 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska.  43 were residents in:   Anchorage (9), Ketchikan (8), Fairbanks (5), Wasilla (3), Chugiak (2), Eagle River (2), Kenai (2), Sitka (2), and one each in Bethel, Delta Junction, Homer, Hooper Bay, Kusilvak Census Area, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Metlakatla, Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, Tok, and Unalaska.  

Two new nonresident cases were identified:

• Fairbanks:  one with purpose under investigation
• Wasilla:  one with purpose under investigation  

Three resident cases were subtracted and one nonresident case was added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 67,357and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,805.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,558 resident hospitalizations and 362 resident deaths, with one new hospitalization and no new resident deaths reported. 

There are currently 19 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and one additional patient who is considered a person under investigation (PUI) for a total of 20 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Three of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 1.7%.

TESTING – A total of 2,257,519 tests have been conducted, with 23,758 tests conducted in the previous seven days.  The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 1.06%.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is intermediate at 7.26 cases per 100,000.  Two regions of Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission; six regions are at intermediate alert status with moderate transmission; and three regions are at low alert with minimal transmission.

High (>10 cases/100,000)

• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 50.95 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 21.21 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)

• YK-Delta Region: 9.63 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 7.7 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 7.13 cases per 100,000
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 6.72 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 4.97 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 4.94 cases per 100,000

Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)

• Southwest Region: 4.01 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 2.92 cases per 100,000
• Northwest Region: 1.84 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.