Alaska COVID-19 Data Summary: August 6, 2021

COVID-19 DATA SUMMARY – August 6, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Aug. 5

OVERVIEW – 327 new cases | 0 deaths | 102 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 52.7% 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 – 58.4% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

52.7% 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: 74.6%
• YK-Delta Region: 70.3%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 69%
• Southwest Region: 63.4%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 62.1%
• Northwest Region: 57.2%
• Anchorage Region: 54.6%
• Other Interior Region: 53.8%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 46.6%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 44.8%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 36.9%

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

CASES – DHSS today announced 327 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska yesterday. 309 were residents in: Anchorage (122), Wasilla (32), Nome Census Area (19), Eagle River (17), Kodiak (15), Ketchikan (14), Kenai (12), Palmer (10), Fairbanks (6), Seward (6), Soldotna (6), Kotzebue (5), Cordova (4), Juneau (4), Kenai Peninsula Borough North (4), North Pole (4), Big Lake (3), Chugiak (3), Copper River Census Area (2), Kenai Peninsula Borough South (2), Sitka (2), Sterling (2), Utqiaġvik (2) and one each in Aleutians East Borough, Aleutians West Census Area, Anchor Point, Bethel, Bethel Census Area, Douglas, Girdwood, Houston, Kusilvak Census Area, Nikiski, Northwest Arctic Borough, Sutton-Alpine and Willow.

18 new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Wasilla: 3 with purposes under investigation
• Denali Borough: 2 in tourism industry
• Kenai: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Soldotna: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Fairbanks: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Kodiak: 1 in seafood industry
• Prudhoe Bay: 1 in North Slope oil industry
• Seward: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Utqiaġvik: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Locations under investigation: 4 with purposes under investigation

Four resident cases and two nonresident cases have been added to the dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 74,244 and the total number of nonresident cases to 3,342.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 1,746 resident hospitalizations and 390 resident deaths, with four new hospitalizations and no new deaths reported. 

There are currently 102 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and three additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 105 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Twelve of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 9.2%.

TESTING – A total of 2,539,899 tests have been conducted, with 29,284 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 6.6%.

ALERT LEVELS – The current statewide alert level, based on the average daily case rate over 14 days per 100,000, is high at 34.3 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)

• Kenai Peninsula Borough: 64.20 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 59.20 cases per 100,000
• Other Interior Region: 50.10 cases per 100,000
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 39.00 cases per 100,000
• Southwest Region: 38.10 cases per 100,000
• Anchorage Municipality: 36.00 cases per 100,000
• Northwest Region: 34.80 cases per 100,000
• YK-Delta Region: 32.50 cases per 100,000
• Juneau City and Borough: 30.10 cases per 100,000
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 22.40 cases per 100,000
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 14.70 cases per 100,000

Intermediate (>5-10 cases/100,000)

Low (0-5 cases/100,000)

ALERT LEVEL CHANGES COMING MONDAY

On Monday, Aug. 9, DHSS will make changes to the alert level system which is used to inform communities about what COVID-19 looks like in their area. These changes to Alaska’s alert system will: better align with CDC’s levels of transmission, make it more sensitive to recent changes in the number of reported COVID-19 cases, and provide more locally relevant information.

Key changes include:

1. Moving from three alert levels to four levels:

Alert Level	Reported cases per 100,000 persons in the past 7 days
High (red)	≥100
Substantial (orange)	50-99.99
Moderate (yellow)	10-49.99
Low (blue)	0-9.99

2. Changing the calculation used from the average number of reported cases per 100,000 people over the past 14 days to the reported number of cases per 100,000 people over the past 7 days.
3. Calculating alert levels for all boroughs and census areas with a population of over 1,000. Those areas with less than 1,000 people will be combined with a neighboring geographic area.

This information will be displayed on the cases dashboard through the alert levels map which will transition from 11 regions to 28 boroughs and census areas.

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.