Alaska COVID-19 Data Summary: August 3, 2021

COVID-19 DATA SUMMARY – August 3, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Aug. 2

OVERVIEW – 307 new cases | 2 deaths | 99 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 52.5% of Alaskans 12+ 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, including their recent change to masking guidance, at www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html.

VACCINATIONS – 58% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

52.5% 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: 74.4%
• YK-Delta Region: 69.9%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 68.7%
• Southwest Region: 63.3%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 61.9%
• Northwest Region: 56.8%
• Anchorage Region: 54.4%
• Other Interior Region: 53.6%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 46.5%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 44.6%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 36.8%

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

CASES – DHSS today announced two deaths of Alaska residents and 307 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska yesterday. 283 were residents in: Anchorage (112), Eagle River (20), Homer (14), Kodiak (13), Bethel (11), Fairbanks (11), Sitka (11), Anchor Point (9), Bethel Census Area (9), Kotzebue (7), Kusilvak Census Area (7), Soldotna (7), Wasilla (7), Kenai (5), Ketchikan (4), North Pole (4), Palmer (4), Fairbanks North Star Borough (3), Juneau (3), Northwest Arctic Borough (3), Craig (2), Utqiaġvik (2), Valdez (2), Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (2), and one each in Aleutians East Borough, Chugiak, Copper River Census Area, Fritz Creek, Kenai Peninsula Borough South, Metlakatla, Nikiski, Nome, Nome Census Area, Petersburg and Prince Of Wales-Hyder Census Area.

24 new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Homer: 4 with purposes under investigation
• Denali Borough: 3 in tourism
• Juneau: 3 in tourism
• Soldotna: 3 with purposes under investigation
• Anchorage: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Seward: 1 in tourism, 1 with purpose under investigation
• Sitka: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Fairbanks: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Kodiak: 1 with purpose under investigation
• NW Arctic Borough: 1 in mining
• Unalaska: 1 in seafood industry
• Yakutat plus Hoonah-Angoon: 1 in tourism

Fourteen resident cases have been subtracted from and two nonresident cases were added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 73,257 and the total number of nonresident cases to 3,275.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,733 resident hospitalizations and 384 resident deaths, with one new hospitalization and two new resident deaths reported. 

Both deaths were recent:

• A female Anchorage resident in her 70s
• A male Anchorage resident in his 60s

Our thoughts are with their families and loved ones.

There are currently 99 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and one additional patient who is considered a person under investigation (PUI) for a total of 100 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Nineteen of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 9.6%.

TESTING – A total of 2,514,701 tests have been conducted, with 24,853 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 6.16%.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 30.9 cases per 100,000. All eleven regions of Alaska are in high alert status with widespread community transmission; no regions are at intermediate or low alert status.

High (>10 cases/100,000)

• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 85.10 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 52.30 cases per 100,000
• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 48.20 cases per 100,000
• YK-Delta Region: 41.80 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 33.00 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 32.80 cases per 100,000
• Southwest Region: 29.60 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 27.80 cases per 100,000
• Northwest Region: 21.30 cases per 100,000
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 17.70 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 12.80 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>5-10 cases/100,000)

Low (0-5 cases/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. 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.