Alaska COVID-19 Data Summary: Oct. 8, 2021

COVID-19 DATA SUMMARY – Oct. 8, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Oct. 7, 2021

OVERVIEW – 839 new cases | 2 deaths | 186 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 58.6% 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 – 63.7% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

58.6% 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: 78.6%
• YK-Delta Region: 75.4%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 74.4%
• Southwest Region: 68.1%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 66.4%
• Anchorage Region: 62.5%
• Northwest Region: 61.5%
• Other Interior Region: 58.6%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 51%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 49.1%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 41.4%

CASES – DHSS today announced one death of an Alaska resident, one death of a nonresident and 839 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska yesterday. 

825 were residents of: Anchorage (335), Fairbanks (46), Wasilla (44), Eagle River (38), Bethel Census Area (37), Juneau (24), Soldotna (23), North Pole (20), Kenai (19), Northwest Arctic Borough (19), Nome Census Area (18), Palmer (17), Kodiak (16), Chugiak (15), Delta Junction (12), Bethel (10), Kotzebue (9), Kusilvak Census Area (9), Valdez (9), Dillingham Census Area (8), Yakutat plus Hoonah-Angoon (8), Copper River Census Area (7), Dillingham (7), Fairbanks North Star Borough (6), Ketchikan (5), Nome (5), Homer (4), Kenai Peninsula Borough North (4), Southeast Fairbanks Census Area (4), Anchor Point (3), Big Lake (3), Girdwood (3), Mat-Su Borough (3), Salcha (3), Sitka (3), Sterling (3), Chevak (2), Chugach Census Area (2), Nikiski (2), Sutton-Alpine (2), Tok (2), Willow (2), and one each in Bristol Bay plus Lake and Peninsula, Cordova, Denali Borough, Douglas, Fritz Creek, Hooper Bay, Kenai Peninsula Borough South, Kodiak Island Borough, North Slope Borough, Petersburg, Prince Of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Skagway, Unalaska and Utqiaġvik.

14 new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Anchorage: 7 with purposes under investigation
• Fairbanks: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Soldotna: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Palmer: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Locations under investigation: 2 with purposes under investigation

One resident case and four nonresident cases were subtracted from the cases dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 116,367 and the total number of nonresident cases to 4,981.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 2,524 resident hospitalizations and 570 deaths. Yesterday there were nine new resident hospitalizations, one recent Alaska resident death, and one recent nonresident death 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 Alaska resident who died was:

• A female Fairbanks resident 80 years or older

The nonresident who died was:

• A male, diagnosed in Anchorage, in his 50s

Our thoughts are with their family and loved ones.

There are currently 186 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and 15 additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 201 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Thirty of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 16%.

TESTING – A total of 3,127,878 tests have been conducted, with 41,293 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 10.12%.

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 764.0. For boroughs and census areas: 23 areas are at the high alert level (>100 cases), three areas are at the substantial alert level (50-99.99), one area is 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.