Alaska COVID-19 Data Summary: Oct. 14, 2021

COVID-19 DATA SUMMARY – Oct. 14, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Oct. 13, 2021

OVERVIEW – 986 new cases | 2 deaths | 209 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 59% 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 – 64.1% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

59% 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: 79%
• YK-Delta Region: 76.1%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 74.7%
• Southwest Region: 68.4%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 66.7%
• Anchorage Region: 62.9%
• Northwest Region: 61.8%
• Other Interior Region: 59%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 51.4%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 49.4%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 41.9%

Please note: Vaccination rates may fluctuate as the data team investigates overestimations of fully vaccinated individuals ages 12 and older.

CASES – DHSS today announced two deaths of Alaska residents and 986 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska yesterday. 

964 were residents of: Anchorage (377), Wasilla (116), Fairbanks (66), Palmer (55), Kodiak (30), North Pole (29), Eagle River (27), Juneau (25), Soldotna (25), Bethel Census Area (24 in 13 communities), Kenai (16), Kusilvak Census Area (14 in 3 communities), Homer (13), Valdez (12), Chugiak (10), Kenai Peninsula Borough North (10 in 2 communities), Nome Census Area (8 in 2 communities), Big Lake (7), Girdwood (7), Mat-Su Borough (7), Ketchikan (6), Willow (6), Anchor Point (5), Bethel (5), Delta Junction (5), Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (5 in 4 communities), Copper River Census Area (4 in 3 communities), Dillingham (4), Hooper Bay (3), Kotzebue (3), Nikiski (3), Nome (3), Seward (3), Sterling (3), Tok (3), Chevak (2), Craig (2), Houston (2), Kenai Peninsula Borough South (2 in 2 communities), NW Arctic Borough (2 in 2 communities), Salcha (2), Unalaska (2), Utqiaġvik (2), and one each in Bristol Bay plus Lake and Peninsula, Chugach Census Area, Dillingham Census Area, Fritz Creek, Kodiak Island Borough, North Slope Borough, Sitka, SE Fairbanks Census Area and Sutton-Alpine.

22 new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Anchorage: 9 with purposes under investigation
• Fairbanks: 3 with purposes under investigation
• Kodiak: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Prudhoe Bay: 1 in North Slope oil industry, 1 with purpose under investigation
• Wasilla: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Aleutians East Borough: 1 in seafood industry
• Kenai: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Palmer: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Unknown: 1 in tourism

Five resident cases and one nonresident case were subtracted from the cases dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 121,710 and the total number of nonresident cases to 5,073.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 2,586 resident hospitalizations and 592 deaths. Yesterday there were 17 new resident hospitalizations and two new 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.

Both Alaska resident deaths were recent:

• A male Fairbanks resident in his 70s
• A male Fairbanks resident in his 50s

Our thoughts are with their family and loved ones.

There are currently 209 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and 11 additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 220 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Twenty-five of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 17%.

TESTING – A total of 3,183,497 tests have been conducted, with 41,791 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 10.75%. Variant information is now posted to the Alaska Coronavirus Variants Dashboard at akvariants.github.io

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 845.79. 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 0 areas 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.