Alaska COVID-19 Daily Summary: May 28, 2021

COVID-19 DAILY SUMMARY – May 28, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. May 27

OVERVIEW – 41 new cases | 0 deaths | 17 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: 60%
• Southwest Region: 54%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 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 41 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska.  40 were residents in:   Anchorage (10), Juneau (4), Wasilla (4), Fairbanks (3), Tok (3), Willow (3), Ketchikan (2), Utqiaġvik (2), and one each in Bethel Census Area, Chevak, Eagle River, Kenai, Kodiak, Kusilvak Census Area, Metlakatla, Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, and Unalaska.

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

Six 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 67,403 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,805.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,560 resident hospitalizations and 362 resident deaths, with two new hospitalizations and no new resident deaths reported. 

There are currently 17 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and no additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 17 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Three of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 1.8%.

TESTING – A total of 2,262,583 tests have been conducted, with 23,599 tests conducted in the previous seven days.  The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 0.99%.

Variants of concern situation summary

B.1.1.7 (38 added since last report)

• Seeing this variant widely in Alaska (and the nation)
• 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 (6 added since last report)

• One:  Wasilla (out of state travel)
• Two:  Wasilla, connected to each other and a previous P.1 case; still being investigated and linked together, but could suggest community-acquisition
• Three:  Nome, connected together as close contacts, no direct travel

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 6.65 cases per 100,000.  Two regions of Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission; five regions are at intermediate alert status with moderate transmission; and four regions are at low alert with minimal transmission.

High (>10 cases/100,000)

• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 43.36 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 22.44 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>4.8-10 cases/100,000)

• YK-Delta Region: 9.08 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 6.69 cases per 100,000
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 6.06 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 5.25 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 4.94 cases per 100,000

Low (0-4.8 cases/100,000)

• Southwest Region: 4.28 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 4.12 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 3.15 cases per 100,000
• Northwest Region: 2.11 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.