Alaska COVID-19 Data Summary: Oct. 26, 2021

COVID-19 DATA SUMMARY – Oct. 26, 2021

Reporting data for 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Oct. 25, 2021

OVERVIEW – 753 new cases | 11 deaths | 241 hospitalizations | Statewide alert level: high | 60% 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 – 64.8% of Alaskans age 12 and older have received at least their first vaccine dose.

60% 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: 80%
• YK-Delta Region: 77.2%
• Other Southeast Region - Northern: 76.1%
• Southwest Region: 70.2%
• Other Southeast Region - Southern: 67.7%
• Anchorage Region: 63.7%
• Northwest Region: 62.5%
• Other Interior Region: 59.6%
• Fairbanks North Star Borough: 52.5%
• Kenai Peninsula Region: 50.2%
• Matanuska-Susitna Region: 43.2%

CASES – DHSS today announced 10 deaths of Alaska residents, one death of a nonresident and 753 new people identified with COVID-19 in Alaska.  

749 were residents of:  Anchorage (185), Wasilla (127), Fairbanks (85), Palmer (65), Eagle River (22), North Pole (21), Soldotna (19), Bethel Census Area (16 in 7 communities), Kenai (16), Nome (15), Juneau (14), Homer (13), Valdez (13), Dillingham Census Area (12), Chugiak (11), Bethel (8), Kusilvak Census Area (8 in 3 communities), Nome Census Area (8 in 5 communities), Ketchikan (7), Anchor Point (6), Delta Junction (6), Houston (5), Kodiak Island Borough (5 in 2 communities), Utqiaġvik (5), Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area (5 in 4 communities), Sitka (4), Sterling (4), Big Lake (3), Bristol Bay plus Lake and Peninsula (3), Copper River Census Area (3 in 2 communities), North Slope Borough (3 in 3 communities), NW Arctic Borough (3 in 3 communities), Wrangell (3), Chevak (2), Kodiak (2), Kotzebue (2), Skagway (2), Sutton-Alpine (2), and one each in Craig, Dillingham, Ester, Fairbanks North Star Borough, Girdwood, Healy, Hooper Bay, Kenai Peninsula Borough South, Mat-Su Borough, Meadow Lakes, Nikiski, Prince Of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Seward, Tok, Willow, and Yakutat plus Hoonah-Angoon. 

Four new nonresident cases were identified in:

• North Slope Borough: 1 in North Slope oil industry
• Fairbanks: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Anchorage: 1 with purpose under investigation
• Location under investigation: 1 with purpose under investigation

Seven resident cases and two nonresident cases were subtracted from the cases dashboard due to data verification procedures bringing the total number of Alaska resident cases to 130,482 and the total number of nonresident cases to 5,214.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS – There have been a total of 2,749 resident hospitalizations and 688 deaths. Thirty-nine new resident hospitalizations, ten Alaska resident deaths, and one nonresident death were 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 ten Alaska residents who died were:

• A female Anchorage resident age 80+
• A female Anchorage resident age 80+
• A male Anchorage resident age 80+ 
• A male Anchorage resident in his 60s 
• A female Anchorage resident in her 60s
• A male Anchorage resident in his 50s 
• A male Fairbanks resident age 80+
• A male Fairbanks resident in his 50s 
• A female North Pole resident in her 70s
• A male North Pole resident in his 70s

The nonresident who died was:

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

 Our thoughts are with their family and loved ones.

There are currently 241 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who are hospitalized and three additional patients who are considered persons under investigation (PUI) for a total of 244 current COVID-related hospitalizations. Thirty-seven of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 is 20.4%.

TESTING – A total of 3,287,317 tests have been conducted, with 41,425 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 9.32%.

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 693.4. 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.