Alaska COVID-19 Daily Summary: June 4, 2021

COVID Case Count

COVID-19 DAILY SUMMARY – June 4, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. June 3

Beginning Monday, June 7, 2021, DHSS will be updating most data on the Alaska COVID-19 Information Hub three times weekly (Monday, Wednesday and Friday excluding holidays) instead of five times weekly (Monday through Friday excluding holidays). The two exceptions will be the hospital data and vaccine monitoring dashboards, which will continue to update data Monday through Friday excluding holidays. The daily summary email and social media posts will move to the three times weekly schedule.

DHSS is making this change in alignment with a continued statewide decline in COVID-19 cases – the 14-day average daily case rate is currently at 5.00 per 100,000 population, at the low end of the intermediate (orange) zone. DHSS plans to continue this new schedule of three times weekly reporting at least through summer. If cases continue to decline, or stabilize at a low level, DHSS may transition in the fall to weekly case count reporting. If the average daily case rate trends in the other direction and increases to the high orange or red zone, DHSS would resume five times weekly reporting (Monday through Friday). If you have any questions or concerns, please email covidquestions@alaska.gov.

OVERVIEW60 new cases | 0 deaths | 20 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: intermediate | 47% 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% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

47% 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: 67%
  • Other Southeast Region - Northern: 62%
  • YK-Delta Region: 61%
  • Southwest Region: 55%
  • Other Southeast Region - Southern: 53%
  • Northwest Region: 50%
  • Anchorage Region: 49%
  • Other Interior Region: 49%
  • Kenai Peninsula Region: 40%
  • Fairbanks North Star Borough: 40%
  • Matanuska-Susitna Region: 31%

For more information about vaccines, visit covid19.alaska.gov.

CASES – DHSS today announced 60 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska. 57 were residents in: Anchorage (12), Craig (5), Wasilla (5), Juneau (4), Kusilvak Census Area (4), Tok (4), Bethel Census Area (2), Delta Junction (2), Fairbanks (2), Ketchikan (2), Nikiski (2), Northwest Arctic Borough (2), Palmer (2), Unalaska (2), and one each in Kodiak, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Metlakatla, Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Soldotna, Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, and Wrangell.

Three new nonresident cases were identified:

  • Anchorage: one airline pilot
  • Juneau: one with purpose under investigation
  • Wrangell: one with purpose under investigation

One nonresident case was added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 67,648 and the total number of nonresident cases to 2,821.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,577 resident hospitalizations and 362 resident deaths, with five new hospitalizations and no new resident deaths reported

There are currently 20 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and one additional patient who is considered a person under investigation (PUI) for a total of 21 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Five of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 2.2%.

TESTING – A total of 2,290,495 tests have been conducted, with 18,349 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 1.05%.

Variants of concern situation summary

B.1.1.7 (51 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 instances of secondary and community spread

P.1 (6 added since last report)

  • One in Wasilla; linked to past cases
  • One in Fairbanks; appears to be community transmission not directly linked to other cases yet
  • One nonresident; tested at Anchorage airport, travel associated
  • Three in Nome; connected as a known cluster, no direct travel

Through June 3, the total number of B.1.1.7 (UK) cases is 230; P.1 (Brazil) cases is 28; and B.1.351 (South Africa) cases is 5. The most recent weekly genomic surveillance report can be read online at hss.state.ak.us/covid19/humancov/AKSeqCon_GenomicSituationReport.pdf.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is intermediate at 5.00 cases per 100,000. Two regions of Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission; two regions are at intermediate alert status with moderate transmission; and seven regions are at low alert with minimal transmission.

High (>10 cases/100,000)

  • Other Southeast Region - Southern: 26.00 cases per 100,000
  • Other Interior Region: 16.60 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>5-10 cases/100,000)

  • YK-Delta Region: 6.60 cases per 100,000
  • Juneau City and Borough: 6.50 cases per 100,000

Low (0-5 cases/100,000)

  • Matanuska-Susitna Region: 4.9 cases per 100,000
  • Fairbanks North Star Borough: 4.50 cases per 100,000
  • Other Southeast Region - Northern: 4.20 cases per 100,000
  • Northwest Region: 4.20 cases per 100,000
  • Kenai Peninsula Borough: 3.80 cases per 100,000
  • Anchorage Municipality: 3.30 cases per 100,000
  • Southwest Region: 3.30 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 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.