Alaska COVID-19 Data Summary: Oct. 5, 2021

COVID-19 DATA SUMMARY – Oct. 5, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Oct. 4, 2021

OVERVIEW – 871 new cases | 3 deaths | 194 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 58.3% 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 – 63.5% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

58.3% 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: 78.4%
• YK-Delta Region: 75.1%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 74.3%
• Southwest Region: 67.8%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 66%
• Anchorage Region: 62.3%
• Northwest Region: 61.2%
• Other Interior Region: 58.4%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 50.8%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 48.9%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 41.2%

CASES – DHSS today announced three deaths of Alaska residents and 871 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska yesterday. 

835 were residents of: Anchorage (240), Fairbanks (102), Wasilla (96), Bethel Census Area (58), Palmer (45), Kodiak (32), North Pole (29), Kenai (28), Eagle River (24), Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (17), Juneau (15), Soldotna (15), Ketchikan (10), Dillingham Census Area (8), Fairbanks North Star Borough (7), Girdwood (7), Chugiak (6), Kusilvak Census Area (6), Nome (6), Valdez (6), Bethel (5), Dillingham (5), Homer (5), Nome Census Area (5), Big Lake (4), Delta Junction (4), Houston (4), Northwest Arctic Borough (4), Petersburg (4), Salcha (4), Yakutat plus Hoonah-Angoon (4), Seward (3), Utqiaġvik (3), Willow (3), Bristol Bay plus Lake and Peninsula (2), Copper River Census Area (2), Haines (2), Ketchikan Gateway Borough (2), Sitka (2), Southeast Fairbanks Census Area (2), and one each in Cordova, Denali Borough, Hooper Bay, Kenai Peninsula Borough North, Kotzebue, North Slope Borough, Sterling, Sutton-Alpine and Unalaska.

36 new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Wasilla: 9 with purposes under investigation
• Anchorage: 5 with purposes under investigation
• Juneau: 5 in tourism
• Ketchikan: 3 with purposes under investigation
• Fairbanks: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Hoonah Angoon plus Yakutat: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Ketchikan Gateway Borough: 2 in tourism
• Aleutians East Borough: 1 in seafood industry
• Bristol Bay plus Lake & Peninsula: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Kenai: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Valdez: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Locations under investigation: 4 with purposes under investigation

Fifteen resident cases were subtracted from, and one nonresident case was added to the cases dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 113,857 and the total number of nonresident cases to 4,941.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 2,465 resident hospitalizations and 561 deaths. Yesterday there were 12 new resident hospitalizations and three recent Alaska resident deaths reported. Please see this webpage for more information on the process used to report COVID-19 deaths: dhss.alaska.gov/dph/epi/id/pages/covid-19/deathcounts.aspx. The individuals who died were:

• A male Northwest Arctic Borough resident in his 70s
• A female Anchorage resident in her 40s
• A male Soldotna resident in his 70s

Our thoughts are with their family and loved ones.

There are currently 194 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and 14 additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 208 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Thirty-seven of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 17.4%.

TESTING – A total of 3,097,271 tests have been conducted, with 38,379 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 9.86%.

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 855.12. For boroughs and census areas: all 28 areas are at the high alert level (>100 cases), no areas are at the substantial alert level (50-99.99), no areas are 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 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.