Alaska COVID-19 Data Summary: Oct. 21, 2021

COVID-19 DATA SUMMARY – Oct. 21, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Oct. 20, 2021

OVERVIEW – 1,024 new cases | 1 death | 242 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 59.6% 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 –64.5% of Alaskans ages 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose. 59.6% 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: 79.7%
• YK-Delta Region: 76.9%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 75.8%
• Southwest Region: 69.9%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 67.5%
• Anchorage Region: 63.5%
• Northwest Region: 62.1%
• Other Interior Region: 59.5%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 52%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 49.8%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 42.8%

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

CASES – DHSS today announced one death of an Alaska resident and 1,024 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska yesterday. 

1,001 were residents of: Anchorage (389), Wasilla (94), Eagle River (53), Fairbanks (51), Palmer (43), Juneau (31), Soldotna (31), Kodiak (26), Bethel Census Area (25 in 12 communities), Kenai (23), Ketchikan (20), Bristol Bay plus Lake and Peninsula (15 in 5 communities), Northwest Arctic Borough (15 in 3 communities), North Pole (13), Sterling (13), Nome (12), Chugiak (10), Copper River Census Area (10 in 3 communities), Nome Census Area (10 in 3 communities), Sitka (10), North Slope Borough (7 in 3 communities), Valdez (7), Homer (6), Utqiaġvik(6), Willow (6), Big Lake (5), Kenai Peninsula Borough North (5 in 3 communities), Kusilvak Census Area (5 in 4 communities), Anchor Point (4), Bethel (4), Delta Junction (4), Dillingham Census Area (4 in 2 communities), Kotzebue (4), Cordova (3), Craig (3), Dillingham (3), Fairbanks North Star Borough (3), Girdwood (3), Houston (3), Matanuska-Susitna Borough (3), Nikiski (3), Sutton-Alpine (2), Tok (2), Unalaska (2), Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (2 in 2 communities), and one each in Chevak, Denali Borough, Ester, Healy, Petersburg, Prince Of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Salcha, and Southeast Fairbanks Census Area.

23 new nonresident cases were identified in:

• Anchorage: 6 with purposes under investigation
• North Slope Borough: 3 in the oil industry
• Bristol Bay and Lake & Peninsula combined: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Fairbanks: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Homer: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Kodiak: 1 with purpose 'other'
• Sitka: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Locations under investigation: 8 in the seafood industry, 1 in tourism

One resident case and two nonresident cases were subtracted from the cases dashboard due to data verification procedures, bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 127,250 and the total number of nonresident cases to 5,174.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 2,690 resident hospitalizations and 668 deaths. Yesterday there were 34 new resident hospitalizations reported as well as one Alaska resident death. 

One Alaska resident death was identified through death certificate review:

• A female Kenai Peninsula resident in her 60s.

Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones.

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.

There are currently 242 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and three additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 245 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Thirty of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 19.4%.

TESTING – A total of 3,249,545 tests have been conducted, with 41,822 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 10.4%.

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 762.24. For boroughs and census areas: 24 areas are at the high alert level (>100 cases), 0 areas are at the substantial alert level (50-99.99), 1 area is at the moderate alert level (10-49.99) and 3 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 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.