Alaska COVID-19 Data Summary: Sept. 20, 2021

COVID-19 DATA SUMMARY – Sept. 20, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Sept. 17-19, 2021

OVERVIEW – 2,108 new cases | 5 deaths | 198 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 57.5% 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 keep our economy strong. Learn more about the vaccines at covidvax.alaska.gov and the CDC’s recommendations for fully vaccinated people at www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html.

VACCINATIONS – 62.4% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

57.5% 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: 80%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 76.4%
• YK-Delta Region: 74.6%
• Southwest Region: 67.8%
• Northwest Region: 66.8%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 65.9%
• Anchorage Region: 60.2%
• Other Interior Region: 57.7%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 50.1%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 48.2%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 40.3%

CASES – DHSS today announced five deaths of Alaska residents and 2,108 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska over the past three days. 

• Sept. 17 – 893 residents, 23 nonresidents
• Sept. 18 – 644 residents, 19 nonresidents
• Sept. 19 – 517 residents, 12 nonresidents

2,054 were residents of:  Anchorage (838), Wasilla (128), Eagle River (121), Fairbanks (113), Juneau (94), Utqiaġvik (74), North Slope Borough (73), Palmer (73), Kodiak (49), Chugiak (40), Northwest Arctic Borough (38), North Pole (36), Ketchikan (35), Bethel Census Area (29), Dillingham Census Area (23), Kusilvak Census Area (23), Soldotna (23), Homer (22), Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (18), Sitka (16), Fairbanks North Star Borough (15), Seward (15), Bristol Bay/Lake and Peninsula (14), Kenai (14), Prince Of Wales-Hyder Census Area (12), Copper River Census Area (11), Bethel (10), Delta Junction (8), Tok (8), Anchor Point (7), Nome Census Area (7), Big Lake (6), Craig (5), Southeast Fairbanks Census Area (5), Nikiski (4), Valdez (4), Aleutians West Census Area (3), Cordova (3), Girdwood (3), Kenai Peninsula Borough - North (3), Kenai Peninsula Borough - South (3), Mat-Su Borough (3), Nome (3), Salcha (3), Willow (3), Denali Borough (2), Hooper Bay (2), Kodiak Island Borough (2), Sterling (2), Sutton-Alpine (2), and Dillingham, Douglas, Healy, Kotzebue, Unalaska, and Yakutat plus Hoonah-Angoon.

54 new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Anchorage: 1 with purpose 'other', 13 with purposes under investigation
• Aleutians West Census Area: 6 with purposes under investigation
• Unalaska: 4 with purposes under investigation
• Kodiak: 1 with purpose 'other', 2 with purposes under investigation
• Seward: 1 with purpose tourism, 1 with purpose seafood, 1 with purpose under investigation
• Wasilla: 3 with purposes under investigation
• Ketchikan: 1 with purpose tourism, 1 with purpose under investigation
• Nome: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Delta Junction: 1 with purpose 'other'
• Eagle River: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Homer: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Kenai Peninsula Borough -South - 1 with purpose under investigation
• Prudhoe Bay: 1 in North Slope oil industry
• Sitka: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Skagway: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Locations under investigation: 1 with purpose 'other', 9 with purposes under investigation

Five resident cases were added and two one nonresident cases were subtracted from the cases dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 98,061 and the total number of nonresident cases to 4,410.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 2,211 resident hospitalizations and 459 deaths. Over the past three days, there were four new resident hospitalizations and five recent Alaska resident deaths reported. The individuals who died were:

• an Anchorage female resident in her 60s
• an Anchorage female resident in her 60s 
• a Homer female resident in her 60s
• an Anchor Point male resident in his 60s
• a Sitka male resident in his 50s

Our thoughts are with their  family and loved ones.

There are currently 198 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and 11 additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 209 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Thirty-seven of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 17.7%.

TESTING – A total of 2,953,017 tests have been conducted, with 54,695 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 9.61%.

ALERT LEVELS - The current statewide alert level – based on the reported number of cases per 100,000 people over the past 7 days – is high (red) at 781.9. For boroughs and census areas: 24 areas are at the high alert level (>100 cases), 3 areas are at the substantial alert level (50-99.99), 1 area is at the moderate alert level (10-49.99) and no areas are at the low alert level (0-9.99).

Find alert levels for individual boroughs and census areas using the alert levels map on the cases dashboard at experience.arcgis.com/experience/2d19dc2b5c7e4b399ff6495a8950493d/

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.