Alaska COVID-19 Data Summary: Sept. 28, 2021

COVID-19 DATA SUMMARY – Sept. 28, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Sept. 27, 2021

OVERVIEW – 726 new cases | 10 deaths | 209 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 59.1% 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 – 63% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

59.1% 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 ages 12 and older by region:

• Juneau Region: 81.3%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 78.7%
• YK-Delta Region: 77.3%
• Southwest Region: 69.2%
• Northwest Region: 69.1%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 66.4%
• Anchorage Region: 62.3%
• Other Interior Region: 58.6%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 51.1%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 49.5%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 41.3%

CASES – DHSS today announced 10 deaths of Alaska residents and 726 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska yesterday. 

694 were residents of: Anchorage (211), Fairbanks (85), Wasilla (37), Kodiak (36), Utqiaġvik (30), Eagle River (28), Juneau (23), Bethel Census Area (21), North Pole (21), Palmer (17), Bethel (14), Sitka (11), Kenai (10), Ketchikan (10), Seward (9), Homer (8), North Slope Borough (8), Valdez (8), Chugiak (7), Fairbanks North Star Borough (7), Kusilvak Census Area (7), Anchor Point (6), Chevak (6), Copper River Census Area (6), Unalaska (6), Kotzebue (5), Southeast Fairbanks Census Area (5), Nome Census Area (4), Soldotna (4), Yakutat plus Hoonah-Angoon (4), Dillingham Census Area (3), Healy (3), Nikiski (3), Northwest Arctic Borough (3), Cordova (2), Delta Junction (2), Dillingham (2), Houston (2), Kenai Peninsula Borough North (2), Nome (2), Skagway (2), Willow (2), and one each in Aleutians East Borough, Big Lake, Bristol Bay plus Lake and Peninsula, Craig, Douglas, Fritz Creek, Girdwood, Hooper Bay, Ketchikan Gateway Borough, Kodiak Island Borough, Mat-Su Borough and Sterling.

32 new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Anchorage: 7 with purposes under investigation
• Ketchikan Gateway Borough: 6 in tourism
• Fairbanks: 5 with purposes under investigation
• Prudhoe Bay: 4 in North Slope oil industry
• Denali Borough: 3 with purposes under investigation
• Bethel: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Cordova: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Kodiak: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Seward: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Southeast Fairbanks Census Area: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Valdez: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Location under investigation: 1 with purpose under investigation

Thirty resident cases were subtracted from, and three nonresident cases were added to the cases dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 107,640 and the total number of nonresident cases to 4,751.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 2,371 resident hospitalizations and 542 deaths. Yesterday there were 29 new resident hospitalizations and 10 Alaska resident deaths reported. Please see this webpage for more information on the process used to report COVID-19 deaths: http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/epi/id/pages/covid-19/deathcounts.aspx

All 10 Alaska residents died recently:

• Female Anchorage resident 80 years or older
• Female Anchorage resident in her 70s
• Female Anchorage resident in her 70s
• Male Anchorage resident in his 50s
• Male Anchorage resident in his 50s
• Female Anchorage resident in her 50s
• Male Anchorage resident in his 50s
• Female Anchorage resident in her 40s
• Female Kenai resident in her 60s
• Female Southeast Fairbanks Census Area resident in her 50s

Our thoughts are with their family and loved ones.

There are currently 209 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and five additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 214 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Thirty-three of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 18.8%.

TESTING – A total of 3,035,204 tests have been conducted, with 45,228 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 9.12%.

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 1,201.1. For boroughs and census areas: 25 areas are at the high alert level (>100 cases), no areas are at the substantial alert level (50-99.99), two areas are at the moderate alert level (10-49.99) and one area is at the low alert level (0-9.99).

Find alert levels for individual boroughs and census areas using the alert levels map on the following dashboard at www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/ddd52524412b41b690b82b5618735f9e

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.