Alaska COVID-19 Data Summary: Oct. 25, 2021

COVID-19 DATA SUMMARY – Oct. 25, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Oct. 22-24, 2021

OVERVIEW – 1,686 new cases | 5 deaths | 236 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 59.9% 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 – 64.7% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

59.9% 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: 79.9%
• YK-Delta Region: 77.1%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 76%
• Southwest Region: 70.1%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 67.7%
• Anchorage Region: 63.7%
• Northwest Region: 62.4%
• Other Interior Region: 59.6%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 52.4%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 50.1%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 43.1%

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

CASES – DHSS today announced five deaths of Alaska residents and 1,686 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska over the past three days. 

• Oct. 22 – 520 residents, 9 nonresidents
• Oct. 23 – 790 residents, 10 nonresidents
• Oct. 24 – 351 residents, 6 nonresidents

1,661 were residents of:  Anchorage (608), Wasilla (139), Fairbanks (97), Palmer (70), Eagle River (66), Soldotna (59), Kenai (54), Dillingham Census Area (52 in 3 communities), Juneau (44), Kodiak (41), North Pole (38), Ketchikan (31), Bethel Census Area (25 in 8 communities), NW Arctic Borough (25 in 6 communities), Homer (24), Nome (23), Kotzebue (22), Copper River Census Area (21 in 3 communities), Nome Census Area (21 in 5 communities), Utqiaġvik (20), Sterling (16), Chugiak (15), Bristol Bay plus Lake and Peninsula (14 in 5 communities), North Slope Borough (14 in 4 communities), Fairbanks North Star Borough (9), Kenai Peninsula Borough North (9 in 2 communities), Mat-Su Borough ( 8 ), Nikiski (7), Bethel (6), Kenai Peninsula Borough South (6 in 2 communities), Willow (6), Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (6 in 6 communities), Cordova (5), Kusilvak Census Area (5 in 4 communities), Skagway (5), Tok (5), Anchor Point (4), Dillingham (4), Wrangell (4), Big Lake (3), Delta Junction (3), Kodiak Island Borough (3 in 2 communities), Petersburg (3), Prince Of Wales-Hyder Census Area (3 in 2 communities), Seward (3), Valdez (3), Chugach Census Area (2), Craig (2), Girdwood (2), Ketchikan Gateway Borough (2), Sitka (2), Southeast Fairbanks Census Area (2), Sutton-Alpine (2), and one each in Chevak, Haines, Healy, Houston, Metlakatla, Salcha, and Unalaska. 

25 new nonresident cases were identified in:

• North Slope Borough: 6 in North Slope oil industry
• Anchorage: 5 with purposes under investigation
• Wasilla: 5 with purposes under investigation
• Fairbanks: 3 with purposes under investigation
• Palmer: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Kodiak: 1 in tourism
• Juneau: 1 in tourism
• Sitka: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Aleutians East Borough: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Location under investigation: 1 in seafood industry 

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 129,740 and the total number of nonresident cases to 5,212.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 2,710 resident hospitalizations and 678 deaths. Over the past three days, there were four new resident hospitalizations and 5 Alaska resident deaths. 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 five Alaska residents who died were:

• A female Anchorage resident in her 70s
• A female Anchorage resident in her 50s
• A male Anchorage resident in his 50s
• A male Kodiak resident in his 50s
• A male Wasilla resident in his 40s 

Our thoughts are with their family and loved ones.

There are currently 236 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and two additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 238 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Thirty-four of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 19.6%.

TESTING – A total of 3,279,336 tests have been conducted, with 46,005 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 9.21%.

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 660.9. For boroughs and census areas: 25 areas are at the high alert level (>100 cases), 2 areas are at the substantial alert level (50-99.99), no areas area at the moderate alert level (10-49.99) and 1 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 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.