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

COVID-19 DATA SUMMARY – Oct. 19, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Oct. 15-18, 2021

OVERVIEW – 2,842 new cases | 66 deaths | 213 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 59.5% 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 – 64.3% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

59.5% 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 ages 12 and older by region:

• Juneau Region: 79.6%
• YK-Delta Region: 76.7%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 75.7%
• Southwest Region: 69.8%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 67.4%
• Anchorage Region: 63.3%
• Northwest Region: 62.1%
• Other Interior Region: 59.3%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 51.9%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 49.7%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 42.6%

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

CASES – DHSS today announced 65 deaths of Alaska residents, one nonresident death and 2,842 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska over the past four days. 

• Oct. 15 – 713 residents, 11 nonresidents
• Oct. 16 – 998 residents, 24 nonresidents
• Oct. 17 – 567 residents, 13 nonresidents
• Oct. 18 – 507 residents, 9 nonresidents

2,785 were residents of: Anchorage (964), Wasilla (361), Fairbanks (219), Palmer (162), Juneau (87), Soldotna (86), Kenai (85), North Pole (75), Bethel Census Area (74 in 17 communities), Eagle River (71), Kodiak (53), NW Arctic Borough (38 in 4 communities), Dillingham Census Area (35 in 4 communities), North Slope Borough (34 in 4 communities), Kusilvak Census Area (30 in 2 communities), Valdez (29), Nome (24), Nome Census Area (24 in 5 communities), Kenai Peninsula Borough North (23 in 2 communities), Homer (21), Ketchikan (19), Willow (19), Chugiak (17), Delta Junction (17), Kotzebue (16), Sterling (16), Yakutat plus Hoonah-Angoon (16 in 3 communities), Utqiaġvik (15), Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (15 in 4 communities), Mat-Su Borough (13), Sutton-Alpine (12), Bethel (11), Copper River Census Area (10 in 3 communities), Big Lake (9), Bristol Bay plus Lake and Peninsula (9 in 4 communities), Nikiski (8), Anchor Point (7), Ester (7), Dillingham (6), Houston (6), Kenai Peninsula Borough South (6 in 2 communities), Sitka (6), Girdwood (4), Aleutians West Census Area (3), Healy (3), Petersburg (3), Unalaska (3), Denali Borough (2), Prince Of Wales-Hyder Census Area (2 in 2 communities), Salcha (2), Seward (2), Tok (2), and one each in Cordova, Kodiak Island Borough, SE Fairbanks Census Area and Wrangell.

57 new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Anchorage: 16 with purposes under investigation
• Wasilla: 15 with purposes under investigation
• Fairbanks: 4 with purposes under investigation
• Prudhoe Bay: 3 in North Slope oil industry
• Sitka: 3 with purposes under investigation
• Bristol Bay plus Lake & Peninsula: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Juneau: 2 in tourism
• Kenai: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Ketchikan: 2 with purposes under investigation
• Kodiak: 1 in seafood industry, 1 with purpose under investigation
• Copper River Census Area: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Delta Junction: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Homer: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Nome: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Soldotna: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Valdez: 1 with purpose under investigation

Eighteen 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 125,445 and the total number of nonresident cases to 5,145.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 2,637 resident hospitalizations and 659 deaths. Over the past four days, there were 35 new resident hospitalizations, 65 Alaska resident deaths and one nonresident death. 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.

NOTE: Today’s data summary includes a large batch of COVID-related deaths. Some of these deaths occurred earlier in the year dating back to April, but the vast majority are fatalities that occurred in September and October. Ten of the deaths were recent with the remaining identified through the death certificate review process.

The 65 Alaska residents who died were:

• A female Kotzebue resident in her 50s
• A female Fairbanks resident 80 years or older
• A female Fairbanks resident in her 60s
• A male Fairbanks resident in his 50s
• A female Fairbanks resident in her 50s
• A male Fairbanks resident in his 40s
• A male Fairbanks resident in his 20s
• A male North Pole resident in his 60s
• A male SE Fairbanks Census Area resident in his 70s
• A male Kusilvak Census Area resident in his 60s
• A female Hooper Bay resident 80 years or older
• A male Bethel Census Area resident 80 years or older
• A female Palmer resident 80 years or older
• A male Palmer resident in his 70s
• A male Palmer resident in his 60s
• A male Palmer resident in his 50s
• A male Wasilla resident 80 years or older
• A male Wasilla resident 80 years or older
• A male Wasilla resident 80 years or older
• A female Wasilla resident 80 years or older
• A female Wasilla resident in her 70s
• A female Wasilla resident in her 70s
• A male Wasilla resident in his 60s
• A male Wasilla resident in his 50s
• A male Wasilla resident in his 50s
• A male Wasilla resident in his 40s
• A male Wasilla resident in his 40s
• A male Wasilla resident in his 40s
• A female Wasilla resident in her 40s
• A male Wasilla resident in his 30s
• A female Big Lake resident in her 70s
• A male Big Lake resident in his 70s
• A female Big Lake resident in her 60s
• A female Anchorage resident 80 years or older
• A female Anchorage resident 80 years or older
• A female Anchorage resident 80 years or older
• A female Anchorage resident 80 years or older
• A female Anchorage resident 80 years or older
• A female Anchorage resident 80 years or older
• A male Anchorage resident 80 years or older
• A female Anchorage resident in her 70s
• A male Anchorage resident in his 60s
• A male Anchorage resident in his 60s
• A male Anchorage resident in his 60s
• A male Anchorage resident in his 50s
• A female Anchorage resident in her 50s
• A male Anchorage resident in his 50s
• A male Anchorage resident in his 50s
• A female Anchorage resident in her 40s
• A male Anchorage resident in his 30s
• A female Anchorage resident in her 30s
• A male Anchorage resident in his 30s
• A female Cordova resident 80 years or older
• A male Kenai Peninsula Borough North resident in his 60s
• A female Kenai Peninsula Borough North resident in her 30s
• A male Kenai resident 80 years or older
• A female Kenai resident in her 60s
• A female Kenai resident in her 60s
• A male Seward resident 80 years or older
• A male Homer resident in his 60s
• A male Juneau resident in his 60s
• A female Juneau resident in her 50s
• A female Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area resident in her 30s
• A female Ketchikan resident 80 years or older
• A female Ketchikan resident in her 70s

The nonresident who died was a female in her 70s who was diagnosed in Valdez.

Our thoughts are with their family and loved ones.

There are currently 213 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and 11 additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 224 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Twenty-eight of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 18%.

TESTING – A total of 3,225,924 tests have been conducted, with 42,739 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 11.0%.

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 811.1. For boroughs and census areas: 23 areas are at the high alert level (>100 cases), 1 area is at the substantial alert level (50-99.99), 2 areas area at the moderate alert level (10-49.99) and 2 areas area 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 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. Alert levels are provided to show trends and patterns over time as there can be substantial day-to-day variation in reporting of cases to DHSS. Alert levels show how widespread the virus is in a community relative to its population size and are a good tool to determine weekly trends for specific geographic areas. 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.